Epiphany: Bloodline
by Cuervo Blanco
Summary: Second of the Epiphany Series. Slow going NaruHina romance. DarkNaruto, DarkHinata. Read the firts part, Abyss, or you are going to be confused out of your mind.
1. With the morning Mist

**Epiphany: Bloodline**

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><p>Chapter 1<strong>: With the morning Mist. The strings are starting to move around you, Naruto.<strong>

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><p>"<em>A defender is someone who protects, and a warrior is someone who battles. Neither of these things make you a hero, even though many hero's have these qualities. A hero isn't a person that win's the fight, or defeats the bad guy. A hero is someone who brings change.<em>

_That is why I will never call myself a hero." - _quote from **Sig Uchiha, **a fellow fanfiction writter.

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><p><em><strong>Somewhere in The Unnamed Country. Chinmoku no Sato. Four years in the future of the current timeline.<strong>_

_**Hatake Kakashi hated his position at the moment. He could be in the front lines of the war, yet he was here, trying to parley his former pupil to participate in the conflict in the name of Konoha. It was for naught, and he knew it. Still, orders were orders.**_

_"**Naruto, please, we need your strength in this war. At this rate, Konoha will be totally annihilated." Pleaded Kakashi to the son of **_**his**_** sensei. Behind him, were some of his colleagues: Mitarashi Anko, Maito Gai, Genma and Ebisu, along side some of Naruto's graduation genin class like Yamanaka Ino and Inuzuka Kiba. **_

_"**You already know the answer to that, Hatake-san. I'm appealed by your nerve." Said the blond without any hint of appeal, or any emotion either. "First entering my home, threatening my family and now asking for my help. Konoha-nins really have a weird way to ask for favours." Continued the blond, unconcerned, and uncaring. It was frightening how accurate Naruto's personification of Uchiha Itachi was. "Please, get out of here or I will need to do something… drastic."**_

_"**Stop being disillusional Naruto. We are going to drag you down to Konoha with us along side **_**her**_**," said the Inuzuka, snarling at the last word. "and there isn't something you can do about it. I swear to Kami that you are going to pay for what you did to Hinata." Finished Kiba before entering in a combat stance. The rest followed suit, but didn't attack. **_

_"**Your memory is more damaged than I thought, because it was you, Konoha at large, that hurt her. Very well, if you insist, them you need to learn a couple of things." And with that the blond made four hand sings. Just four.**_

_**None of them had time to react, because none of then saw or felt anything. No chakra spike that was the tale-tell of jutsus, no sing of any elemental manipulation, no sing of illusions, poisoning. Nothing. **_

_**And then, they felt despair after realised that some of them were missing limbs, and were cut in tiny little pieces, if it could be call like that. It was more like a mass of blood and gore totally squashed in a crimson and brown paste. Soon the screams, the pain filled cries tore the silence of the night.**_

_"**Naruto, what the heck you…" but Kakashi couldn't finish. A flash of light covered his vision and, in a blink of an eye, he and what was left of his squad somehow had appeared in the middle of Konoha. And like that, Kakashi, along side his colleagues, passed out thanks to the blood loss.**_

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><p><strong>Four years earlier, present day of the current timeline.<strong>

"_Ino had been totally quiet."_, thought Shikamaru, _"Ever since we started this mission, she hadn't speak a word aside from answering some questions, and had only said what was necessary. This silence from her is unnatural, and whatever is causing this it had something to do with Naruto… Troublesome."_ Thinking about the other blond, Shikamaru lazily averted his gaze from his teammate and laid his eyes at his front, where the walking form of Uzumaki Naruto was barely visible in the mist that had plague the last part of their journey.

"Halt!" commanded Sarutobi Asuma to his team and his temporally squad members. Next to him, Uzuki Yugao and a chuunin that use a sembon as a toothpick named Gemma, were the back-up that they had for this mission. "Yugao-san, how far are we from Wave?"

"At this pace, we can reach it in three hours max." answered the purple haired jounin. Shikamaru like her because she had a nonsense professional attitude all the time.

"_It is strange."_ Continued the Nara his train of thought. "_Why so many people for a simple retrieve mission. Our team it more that enough fro that. That means that there is another mission within this one or where we are going is dangerous enough to require higher level shinobi but not enough to be a jounin. I can bet that is the former rather than the latter. It can be both for all I know. Troublesome._"

"Lets rest a little bit. This mist is going to disappear soon." Said Asuma before sitting down in a nearby rock. The rest followed suit.

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><p>Himura Danzo saw, unperturbed, how the last of the civilian side of the council fall without resistance under the controlling power of Shusui's eye.<p>

"Fu, this is the last one. Lest rest after this for a while before starting the next part of our plan."

"Hai, Danzo-sama." Said Yamanaka Fu, before disappearing at the same time as his master via Shunshin.

Hours later, after much deserved rest, the old war hawk was in front the man that he despised and admired the most.

"I got that you had finished the first part of your latest…scheme. It seems that your usual paranoia paid off and now our fears are confirmed" Said Sarutobi neutrally to his old rival and friend.

"Yeah. Unfortunately I was right." Said Danzo a little, just a little, quitter than usual. Sarutobi raised his eyebrows at this. On Danzo, such subtle gestures were really uncommon, since the old man had always his emotion in check and totally in control. If Sarutobi wasn't seeing it, he would not believe it: Himura Danzo was pissed.

"How it went?"

"Worse than we thought." Was the only answer of the seemly handicapped man.

(Flashback)

_The first thing that Hyuuga Hibana did when she opened her eyes was her "master", Himura Danzo, in front of her. At her side, the agent Root that she knew, despite his concealing disguise, was Yamanaka Fu, who had his palm on her forehead. _

_Hibana had come immediately after being summoned without raising suspicions. The last thing that she remembered was entering the Root Main Base before blacking out. Somehow she had been discovered and her life span had been cut short down to hours. They would torture her until she died or say something useful before finish her._

"_Hibana, you will tell me who and how this new seal came to past in your clan, and why."_

"_Danzo-sama, I don't know what are y…" but pain interrupted her, pain that she could not fathom why it was passing her defences. She didn't scream, of course, she was trained to sustain a lot of damage without changing her face expression or give away any body language reaction. But this one was a close call._

"_A new seal was placed on you to cause you enough pain to kill a normal shinobi. I don't know how, but the seal in your tongue was nullified and we have to use at least two hundred fold of power of the usual torture seal to see some effect on you." Replied Danzo while observing the smallest of details on his fallen agent. He was proud to say that he didn't catch any… yet. If all his years had taught him something was that everybody, and I mean _everybody,_ had a breaking point. It was a matter of when and how it was reached._

_Hibana didn't answer. She needed to inform _her_, somehow, that the Hyuuga was under suspicion. Danzo was not pleased._

"_It seems that we need to do some…drastic… measures." And to the horror of the agonizing Hyuuga, the war hawk uncovered his lost eye, just to reveal a Sharingan eye under them, a Sharingan that she knew all to well._

"_I know that you recognize Shusui's eye, since he was your partner in many missions. Now you will tell me what I want to know. **Koto Amatsukami!**" And with that the ultimate hypnosis technique fall on Hibana._

_Or try to, because a lot of things happened at once._

_Hibana started to trash on the floor, convulsing, screaming without words or sound in pain, before turning limp, quiet and restful. Danzo, in the other hand, was thrown back two meters by a chakra backlash while Fu felt to the floor unconscious. _

_Five minutes later, when Danzo and Fu where up again, they noted that Hibana's eyes had melted in a sort of bloody paint. _

_(End of flashback)_

"My medic agents after that try to identified what the heck happened but it seems that this new seal is more formidable than we thought. Everything, down to the molecular level was sealed beyond salvage." Danzo said.

"Did you discover something more?"

"Yes. Fu was able to catch an image and a name matching that image of the responsible of the new seal: Hyuuga Hinata." This perturbed the Sandaime, but he expected something among those lines. The surprises weren't finished though. "In that particular memory there was someone else that you need to be aware off."

"Who?"

"Uzumaki Naruto." This time, Sarutobi didn't bother to hide his shock.

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><p>"Dammed!" yelled Haruno Sakura throwing an assortment of scrolls and papers with notes and seal drawings all over the place. It had been too weeks since she got out of the hospital. Somehow she had awakened in a world where her chakra was so screw up that nobody knew how to deal with it. She also had forgotten what the heck had happened in the last day of their botched mission. The last thing she remembered was an strange swordsman impaling her stomach after the bastard of Uchiha Sasuke had switched with her to escape the blow, that coward. To add salt into de injury the Shinobi Council had determined that she should not be properly punishment for his blatant betrayal but only restart some sort of therapy session and reduce pay for a while…. What the heck was happening with the world? Sakura knew that, if she did something a kind to that she would have been executed on the spot, such were the rules. Then why the Uchiha was different.<p>

"**It is because, in her eyes, you are worthless. You don't have a gekken genkai, or a noble shinobi clan. You are weak and thus dispensable."** Said her other self, as she had called her new mental condition. Ever since she woke up from her short coma, her other self, that one that once upon a tine she had called her "inner", had become stronger and had taken a more… active roll… in her live.

"_Shut up! I am not in the mood for you right now."_ Mentally replied Sakura.

"**You know that you don't mean that, don't you? You are not fun."**

"_We just don't have the same definition of fun."_

"**See what I meant? You, young lady need to get laid. And you know, Chouji-kun doesn't seem to mine being raped by us…"**

"_Wh..what the heck are you talking about? Stop bubbling such nonsense!"_

"**You know what I mean, little old me…"**

And indeed, Sakura knew. At first Sakura didn't knew how to react after knowing that her chubby friend had staid at her side ever since she was booked in the hospital, only leaving her to train with his team and going on missions. But it warmed her and made her blush to see his dedication to him. But he didn't stop there, he help her all the week afterwards through her rehabilitation. Ino of course was there, but her blond friend disappeared at the oddest of times leaving her under Chouji's tender cares.

And then, the bomb.

Chouji invited to dinner, as in a date. In all honestly she was caught by surprise and quickly agreed, but she honestly didn't though it was something beyond a friend's date, to cheer her up and pull her out of the funk that she had been in since her awakening. It worked really well.

They had fun and a great time together. Chouji at first was ridiculously shy around her, but after a while relaxed and open up to the happy atmosphere. They had a blast. Chouji, of course manage to make her smile and laugh the whole night while being a gentleman. In the end, after escorting her back home, he decided to invite her to another date in the future.

This was when Sakura couldn't deny it anymore and saw Chouji's feelings and intentions as plain as day. She hesitated to answered and the Akaimichi noted this so he compromised saying that she could answer later on. And like that he said goodbye and went home. Sakura staid there, unmoving, for a couple of minutes before entering her home.

She frankly hadn't though of Chouji in that way. He had become one of his friends, along side Shikamaru and Ino. In never crossed her mind a possible relation there. It had been five days since that dated and she still didn't know what to think, what to do. And she didn't want to.

All Sakura had done was to further the research that she had start after she graduated from the academy, to occupy her mind, to search for answers, to find the way to become strong.

Picking one of the scrolls that she had throw in frustration to the floor, she read something that she may had overlook before:

"_Bloodlines, after much studies of all kinds, still reminded a mystery to our science. Where they come from, and why? This are the major focuses of any researcher on the subject. Some more known bloodlines had been mutations of previously abilities on certain group of people, but from where this base abilities came from is still unknown. Understanding the basic concept of theses concepts is a key for the Seal Master. Using the sacred art of Seals, it is possible to suppress and, with enough skill, destroy a bloodline without killing the user…"_

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><p>"Finally, this mist had dissipated." Murmured Naruto, though everybody could hear him.<p>

Just as the visibility came back under the rays of the sun the shinobi group arrived to the main entrance of the bridge builder's town. They almost wished that they hadn't. In from of them was the poorest and most depressing thing that they could fathom. Children way too thin to be normal, and even adults scattered around, sitting on the floor, with tore clothes, dirty wormed out clothes, and some of then with blood stains all over.

But the most heartache thing of all this were the villagers' eyes. They were dead, out of shine or hope. This people were more dead than alive. Naruto recognize that look immediately, a look that he had met in his bathroom mirrors all too many times, alone, in the cursed loneliness of the silence that he suffered before meeting Hinata.

The group itself was under henge. They looked like travellers that were needed of some rest.

"Naruto, where is the place that we are looking for?" asked Asuma to the blond. He was aware what they were looking form, while his genin team only knew that they were searching for a Uzumaki heirloom.

"We will need to get a local map, but we need to go northwest, like 3 km before reaching the coast." Answered Naruto without shifting his gaze from the villagers.

"Ok. Yugao-san, Genma-san, go ahead, we will meet here at twilight." said the son of the Sandaime. Yugao and Genma nodded, before taking a different direction from the group. It was time to visit Tazuna's daughter, Tsunami-san.

"_So, I was right." _Thought Shikamaru. _"There is a secondary mission going on. I wonder what it is. Oh well, it is too troublesome to even think about it."_

"This is our chance! Let's be in our way." Proclaimed Asuma before leading the genins to their next destination.

(With Yugao and Genma)

"We are almost there." Say Yugao, or her alias for this mission: Mao, to her partner, and suppose husband: Shou.

"So, this woman, Tsunami, is the daughter of the liar client, Tazuna." Stated Shou nee Genma.

"Yeah, but it is confirmed that he lied because he couldn't afford anything else, nobody in the island could either. They pay for this mission with a pool of the money they could collect."

"Gatou then, somehow, caught wind of this and started a counter-measure hiring shinobi."

"Yeah, and you saw the result. It seems that this bridge was the last hope of this people. Gatou had play his cards right and had crushed any psychological response that he may encounter." Explained Yugao.

Genma knew that this was not the only reason why his partner and friend, was pissed. Nonayamo Rikka had been Yugao's close friend and Genma himself had interacted with her in a couple of Poker Nights between their group. She was nice woman, and really pretty. Damn strong too and really scary when she was pissed off. Whoever Gatou hired to do his dirty jobs had to be strong, jounin level at least.

Soon they reached a wooden house that surely had seen better days. They knocked. No answer. They knocked again. No answer.

"Maybe they are not here." Suggested Genma, but he immediately noted that Yugao had closed her eyes for a second and started to sniff the air. The rumour that he had heard that Yugao was part of the ANBU had been confirmed in front of him.

"That is the smell of alcohol and of somebody that hadn't take a bath in weeks." And like that Yugao open the door using picking-lock skills.

There in the middle of the dining room of the modest house was a woman with long black hair, totally passed out and emanating a strong smelt of rum, the pirates drink. Gemna noted that the woman had several bruises and some cut scars. The dirt in her pale skin was obvious and the baggage under her eyes told an insomniac tale. The house was a mess and broken objects, including some smashes alcohol bottles, were scattered around the floor and old battled furniture.

Yugao only sighed before picking the woman and taking her upstairs to take care of her while Genma start to scout the surroundings.

(With team Asuma and Naruto)

It was kind of hard for the undercovered group. More times that he could count, groups of kids, old man, an even woman approached them, asking for food. Some women even offered their _services_ in exchange of something, anything to put something in the stomach of their children; theses women not even care if they had to bed Ino or Naruto, or both.

Naruto kept his emotionless façade the whole time, while within he used all his resolve to not to break then and there. The others weren't any better.

Once they reached Wave, the group travelled under henge. Asuma was a man called Kasuma, and he was the suppose uncle of the white haired and brown eyes kid Shiro (Naruto), the brown haired and hazel eyes Renka (Ino), the black haired and blue eyes Tanto (Chouji) and the deep blue haired and green eyes Sora (Shikamaru). The back ground of the travelling family was that Kasuma had taken under his wing after his two borthers and sisters died in a fire that burned down their compound in Rice Country. Kasuma was from Suna, but to take care of the kids he recently moved to Fire Country. They were doing this trip because it wasin Wave were their great grand father, Samegaki Kai, had been lived there almost 100 years ago and had helped building villages that later had become Wave Country.

The funny thing was that all this actually happened. The best of Deception was to use the truth to cover a lie that was covering another truth, or so Asuma-sensei had said. And now, after half an hour of getting out of the town, the group finally had reached a carved cave that had an Inari Shrine within.

"_Inari, the foxes' patron."_ Thought Naruto with dry humour. _"How ironic!"_

They entered after they checked that it was safe to. After almost five minutes of walking, they reach the end of the cave, and they couldn't helped but feel amaze of what they found. In the end it was a middle size pond, and in the middle of it, standing in four wood columns, was a wooden house, thought it was a tab too short to be called as such. The wood house was designed as the ancient shrines similar to those that Naruto had seen in some books. It had a balcony of sorts around shaped in a concentric square with a wood fence and the house in the middle. In the front door was a spiral in its centre; a spiral that he immediately recognized. To complete the set, a wooden bridge connected the land with the wooden shrine.

But this was secondary compared to what it was in front of them. A bald man, or a man with a shaved head, was standing in front of them. He had the tunics that were the signature of the monks. He looked like he was 22 years old and had his eyes closed. In his right hand was a Bo staff of the same height was the estranger.

"Greetings Uzumaki Naruto; I have been waiting for you." Said the monk with a gentle smiled in his face. This, of course, put Naruto, and the rest of his colleagues, on guard. Naruto, specially, knew that anybody that smile to him like that and wasn't named Hyuuga Hinata was suspicious at best and highly hazardous for his health at worst.

"Who are you?" asked Asuma, totally wary.

"I go by many names, Sarutobi Asuma, but you can call me Great Meister Oogway." Said the man.

Asuma paled in awe of what he had heard. He recognised that name because he had lived with the Fire Temple Monks for a while when he was one of the Daimyo personal guards. But what he was seeing at the moment. Master Oogway was too old and wise compare to this youngling. But there was one way to verified it this…monk… was telling the truth.

"_vahaban kaH?_ (who are you?)" began Asuma, earning confused looks from his pupils and Naruto.

"_aham asmi paradezin, prAkpazcimAyata nirUpana vaidezika._(I'm a traveller from the East, coming to the west looking for a stranger.)" replied the monk, mildly amused.

"_virAma itastataH proSitavat. aham asmi yena bhavAn mRgayati._ (Stop there stranger. I'm whom you seek.)" answered Asuma in blatant disbelieve on his shocked faced before kneeling in front the stranger. "I apologize for my rude ignorance, Oogway-dono."

"No need for that, young Sarutobi. In our world, specially in your profession, caution and prudence are valued virtues." Answered the monk wisely.

At Asuma's side were the genins that clearly didn't know what to think, though Shikamaru and Naruto concealed their emotions masterfully, and the jounin didn't blame them. To the outsider, the briefly interchange that just occurred weren't words, but distorted sounds, and in any case that they had tried to read their lips they would had found that it was impossible (he didn't knew that Naruto had tried).

And in any case that a powerful ninja managed to crack those sounds them they wouldn't be able to use them. Between the monks, the dialect they used was known as True Speak, a sacred language. Only the Great Meisters of old knew why, but this language had power on its own. Sadly, the knowledge had been almost totally lost and only few phrases were known. The True Speak had a particular quality in itself: nobody, and I mean nobody, could lie with it. It was said that this language was the true language of the soul and thus it was impossible to use for evil thinks as lying.

"Uzumaki Naruto," started the monk again "I had come here because I want to meet you. Behind those doors" pointing to the wood shrine in the lake, "awaits what it is yours by birthright. You will need to make a decision. One would led you to fulfil your destiny of glory and immortality and the other would led you to a path of greatness and destruction. Choose carefully, because the fate of those around you depends on it."

"Wait, what do you mean…" but before Naruto could say anything further a gust of wind showed form nowhere taking the monk in the process. In the blink of an eye the Great Meister Oogway was gone.

"Uzumaki-san," started Asuma after a while with a puzzled face, "whatever the Master told you, heed his advice."

Naruto could only nod before starting to cross the wood bridge.

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><p>Hinata was alone, sitting on her knelt legs on the tatami of her house dojo. Contrary to the newbie' popular believe, meditation was one of the best methods to strength one's chakra at the spiritual side. The Chi, the mental strength, was crucial to learn and ease one's control, to enhance chakra recovery and increasing the potential of the chakra pool size.<p>

And at the moment, with her eyes closed, Hinata was meditating, or trying to. She felt uneasy, like a gut feeling that something was terrible wrong, but she couldn't pin the feeling to something in concrete, though she had an idea of why.

Two days ago, while she was taking a nap (she needed her beauty sleep, damn it!) she received visions, memories of sort out of the blue…

(Flashback)

"_Father, you need to stop doing this to your self. Don't you see the good fortune that Kami had bestowed upon us?" said the recognizable voice of Hyuuga Hibana to an old man that seemed like he was seek and that he haven't eat something decent in weeks. "Father, please, eat something. I don't want to loose you too." Pleaded her voice._

_In front of her, sitting in his bed, was a face that the ghostly form of Hinata recognized immediately: the sad form of Hyuuga Shinji, the now blind man that was responsible of her kidnapping at the hands of Kumo. _

"_You may rejoice with this fiasco, daughter of mine, but our late seal was there to protect us from our worst enemy: ourselves." Said the man with finality. "The Hyuuga will fall. And everything will be _Hinata-sama_'s_ _fault."_

"_Dad, for the first time I dare to have a dream, to have a future without fearing that everything is a cruel nightmare, mocking me with a faux freedom. I just hope that you can see, understand that. I dare to smile in happiness after so long." Ended Hibana knelt at his side._

_Then the memory faded in a swirl of colours before stopping in another one, where was Hibana, obviously when she was a lot younger, maybe a year older of what Hinata herself was at the moment._

_She was sitting, alone in the park. Two months ago she had graduated form the academy, and was the best in her class, as it was expected from a Hyuuga, but sadly it was not good enough for her clan, and her father who hadn't even smile in pride._

"_A ryo for your thoughts." Said an old man before sitting down next to Hibana. Hinata recognized immediately Danzo's face. Hibana reacted as a true Hyuuga, she just gave him an emotionless glare without giving away that she had been taken by surprise. Hinata noted that Danzo noticed, but didn't comment on it._

"_I now that you recognized me, I had been in you compound before while I was conducting some business with your Clan Head." Danzo continued. "I have checked your profile, because I direct a special shinobi unit, and I'm really interest in your talent and abilities."_

_Hibana didn't respond and she was looking a way to get out of there with the dignity of a Hyuuga intact, yet, she couldn't help but be curious._

"_Tell me, are you interest to serve your village in a better way?"_

(End of flasback)

She woke up after that with an unsettling feeling on her heart and it haven't disappear since then. She had been informed that Hibana had been called to a mission the same day of her dream and hadn't comeback yet.

A nock was heard outside before the Hyuuga Hanako, a former main clan member that she knew, hated the new changes in her former life of luxury, was bowing on the tatami waiting a permission to speak.

"What it is Hanako-san?"

"Hinata-sama, an ANBU from Hokage-sama wants to see you, by order of Sandaime-sama."

"Please, let him in." said Hinata, enjoying Hanako's shock of her knowledge of the ANBU's gender.

A couple of seconds later the ANBU agent knelt in from of her. Hinata hadn't change her position in the slightest since she took it almost three hours ago.

"I apologize for the interruption, Hinata-sama, but Sandaime-sama wants to speak to you as soon as you can." Said the ANBU evenly, but both of them knew that it was an order, even if it wasn't stated as such.

"Okay ANBU-san. Give a couple of minutes to get ready." Said Hinata standing up, before going to her room. The ANBU disappear in a swirl of leaves.

The uneasy feeling didn't disappear in the slightest. If any, if grew viciously.

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An Cut!

Nas! Here it is the first chapter of the second Volume of the Epiphany series. Starting a story line is never easy but I hope that my efforts were worth of your reading time.

**Chinmoku no Sato** means Village of Silence. If you want to have an idea geography-wise you can go to my profile, there is the map that I'm using.

If anyone noticed, or guessed it, I'm adding Naruto's name to the end of the preview title for the next "episode", like Gundam: Seed does. I just find it cool, that's all.

Last, in the poll that I set a couple of weeks ago, had a surprising triple tied. The winners are: a) to continue what I'm doing, b) a fairy tail/Naruto cross and c) One piece/Naruto cross. It was difficult, but while I'm working of these I will work on the Fairy Tail Cross first and then, when its finished, the One piece one.

Please, let your thoughts in your reviews or via pm. I'm always eager to read them. And I heed your advices too^^

Cuervo out!

pd: The language that Asuma and Oogway were using is Sanskrit


	2. Interlude: Rainy Thoughts

**AN:**Sorry fellas, this chapter wasn't supposed to be like this, but luck is not on my side. Four days ago, my computer crashed, with everything in it, and two days ago my usb memory with my back up documents died as well. They took with them al my work TT_TT. I was planning to surprise you, my readers, with a triple chapter update, since this week is my birthday and I wanted to celebrate with you, but alas it wasn't mean to be. I got depressed after my lost, but in my depression, new ideas came to my mind. Happily, I had random notes of the general timeline for this story so I had something to work on again, I'm just sad that all that hard work went to waste.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did writing it.

pd: for a better mood for the reading, I recommend to listen **Grief and Sorrow** or **Sadness and Sorrow**(piano version), both by Toshido Masuda.

**Interlude: Rainy Thoughts. The Heaven's taers for your melody, Naruto.**

_"Hinata-chan, we need to talk."_

That's what Naruto had said to her almost a week ago. After he tied some lost nots here and there, they had sit down and talk about what had happened. It was incredible, really. Even in this timeline Naruto's luck seemed to show itself uninvited. Whe was telling her about their encounter with the swordsman, whose name Naruto learnt was Nanashi no Nejibana from the sword **Kawarene**, she couldn't stop the memory of Sakura in the last timeline telling her and their others classmates the messed up things that happened in all her missions with Naruto.

_"Do you have to go to Wave, Naruto-kun? Is this for more power?" s_he recalled the question she asked him.

_He shook his head negatively as she knew he would_. _"I know that you ha noticed the absence of our connection, Hinata-chan." He took a brief sigh while changing is gaze through the window for a second, looking into a horizon that wasn't present in the range of their vision. He then returned his gaze into her eyes, somehow he had found the words he was missing in the summer's blue sky._

_"Hinata-chan, with that connection we have I can have you close to my heart, quite literally, and can feel you next to me, giving me hope, being the Hinata in my darkness. _(**AN: **This is a unintentional pun because Hinata means "Bright White Light" in Japanese. It's funny to know that Hanabi means "Bright Fireworks")_. I want to go to Wave to discover we one of the most precious things that I have is gone. Hopefully, we can have it back"_

That night, Naruto took her out in a date. Both new that any descent restaurant will deny them access, even if she was the hieress of one of the most prominent clans in the whole Fire Country, but it wasn´t a problem because Naruto had a plan.  
>Quite mysteriously, Naruto picked her and took her o some clearing in the back of the Hokage Monument. She was surprised, after taking off the blindfold that he had put playfully on her eyes, to see a beautiful clearing surrounded with flowers and a small pond on its north. In the middle of the clearing, it was a table with candles and covered plates on the top.<p>

The fulfilled night start complete what was to her, and she was sure to any girl she knew, the most perfect romantic setting for a date. The dinner itself was nothing to scoff of either. Hinata was sure that they were better chefs around with better resources, but the fact was that Naruto had taken time to learn her favorite dishes and had made them himself, all for her and only her, and because of this, Hinata could honestly say to the years to come that none other food was as good as that simple meal.

They talked miscellaneous things and had a pleasant and relaxing time, but the surprises weren´t quite finished. After eating, Naruto stood up, taking a sealing scroll, the blond unsealed the last thing that Hinata expected: a Cello.

_"I'm not an artist, a don't have many talents, but I wanted to give something special. I composed this song for you, I hope you like it." Naruto said nervously, but full of conviction and hope in his eyes... hope to see her approval and delight. Hinata never knew that he was practicing a instrument being the when? and how? the questions popping in her head, but she decided that, even if Naruto's composition was the ugliest piece of musical trash, for her it would be the most sublime and divine artful piece. And so he played the song for only her ears to listen._

_And what song? It was melancholic, a kind of sadness and tenderness in the low humming of he Cello cords. There was something more, a sensation, a promise of a special gift, a present that will last through all eternity. Hinata knew what it was: love. _(**AN: **The song is **A** **Love Before Time **by Yo Yo Ma.)

_Hinata didn't notice when, but trails of tears were cascading from her eyes. Naruto, when finished his song, he was worried that somehow he had offend the most important person in his life, but his concerns were washed away when Hinata walked toward him before engulfing him in a tender hug, filled of warm and carishness. Hinata repeated over and over again him she loved him so much. _

_They staid like that, in each other's arms, accompanied by the silence of the night and the sound of their hearts, for a while. They would have stay together like that for all eternity but, without their noticing; clouds filled the sky and unleashed a light rain at first, before becoming a full pounding pour. Hinata, while Naruto resealed all the things that they had used during the their date, stood there, facing the heavens with her eyes closed and her arms extended. It was like she was basking in the ever falling water, to Naruto she just look like and angel._

_After they had reached the Hyuuga compounds, they sat down on the south side of the porch that surrounded the main house, the one facing the garden. They stay their in comfortable silence, both being wrapped by warm blanket that covered them both. Watching the rain, even if their link was gone, they never felt so close before._

_"Do you like the rain?" Naruto asked her, watching her curiously._

_"It doesn't bother me." Her answer was simply, too short, so she decided to elaborate. "The rain... it has a way to bring up memories..."_

_Naruto didn't ask further, and for that she was grateful. If he had asked what kind of memories she was recalling at the moment, Hinata was sure that she would have told him everything, the memories that she treasured with her mother._

_At some point both of them fall sleep, leaning into each other._

Hinata smile remembering those events, treasuring them close her heart. Somehow, she had fall in love even more with her cute sweet blond fox. She remember his last words before departing.

_"Hina-hime, by angel, after I come back I want to talk to you and Hiashi about asking for your hand formally." Stunned by his words, Hinata squeal was muted by Naruto's crushing yet tender, kiss. Hinata was totally dazed with an stupid silly grin on her face for a couple of minutes before she noticed that her blond fox was gone._

Getting back to the present, Hinata had never expected this so soon. She of course knew that they would end married eventually, but that was supposed to happen in a few years, not that she was complaining about or anything.

Now, in front of the door of the Hokage's office, Hinata could not shake the feeling of something off that had plagued her for the last couple of days.

_"Doesn't matter" _She thought, _"nothing will stand our way, mine and Naruto-kun's... Nothing!"_

And like the old adage says: "Famous last words."

….

(Somewhere in Wave Country)

Rimi was a good girl. Rimi was patient. Rimi was sure to accomplish the task that her father had set for her. And now she could feel that her hundreds of year waiting was about to reach its end.

Rimi liked her name. Her father, Hyoma-outo-san, had created her, even of was by accident, on a rainy day, hence her name. Rimi liked her name as much as she liked the rain, or was vice versa? It didn't matter, what it counted was that she liked the special name that her father gave her, and not that other name that indentified her: AICA (Artificial Intelligence Chakra Anomaly).

Rimi was special, her father said so. She had developed a soul when she was only supposed to be a recorded memory. He never understood how it happened, Rimi either. She only knew that she came to be, and that was it.

And when she finished her task, she could join her outo-san in heaven, Rimi had felt lonely over the centuries since she was unique, special. Before his passing, her outo-san tried to create another one like Rimi so she would not be lonely, but he fail. Rimi was sad, but Rimi understood, because Rimi was a good girl.

Rimi was a guardian, a treasure keeper. She would deliver he gift that her outo-san alongside the Otori people (Rimi thought that they had a funny name) had created for their descendants.

And now, Rimi felt the Uzumaki blood approaching to her place. She felt exited! Look outo-san, look form heaven that Rimi was good girl and had wait patiently, even if Rimi had felt sad and lonely because she had no other purpose, because she hadn't see the world, or the snow falling from the sky like her outo-san had described to her, the flowers, the animals, the ramen.

But Rimi was a good girl so Rimi vanished those thoughts. She is happy wife the life that her outo-san had gave her and she had to conform herself with that.

As Rimi thought these things, Rimi saw how a blond boy with the deepest azure eyes that she had seen and whiskers on his face, entered her place.

He seemed to be looking for something so Rimi, being a good girl, took the shape of her human form before appearing out of thin air in front of the now surprised boy.

.

.  
>CUT!<p>

Well, here it is. Some of you were wondering what had happened between the last chapter of the first vol and the first chapter of this one. I hope you had enjoyed it. Because I will really busy putting together again all the work that I lost alongside my computer. This is my dad-s by the way.

I'm kind of disappointed that none of you had guess from which anime came from the names of Team Two (the team that disappeared in Wave) and form which movie came the conversation that Asuma and Oogway had in Sanskrit.  
>By the way, Rimi's name also came from another manga that I started to read three weeks ago. I think is awesome and will probably use some ideas from it. A clue, this manga is about martial arts^^<p>

R&R because the point of all of this effort is to know what you, dear readers, think of my work.


	3. Tormenta

**AN: **Nas! It has been after a while eh? Well, here is the chapter that I had to recreated from scratch after loosing it. It is not betaed so glaring errors will show up here and there. Enjoy it^^

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><p><strong>Chapter 2:<em> Tormenta<em>. The storms darkening your home, Naruto. **

* * *

><p>"<em>The best laid schemes of Mice and Men, often go astray" <em>Robert Burns.

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><p>"Hey, Shika, had you seen either Chouji or Sakura?" asked Ino to her lazy friend. Shikamaru was resting in his usual spot, watching the clouds. For a second, Ino thought that he didn't hear her, but Shikamaru was aware of his surroundings.<p>

"Hey Ino, did something happened between Sakura and Chouji?" asked the pineapple head. "I mean, did you notice something different on them? Something is off?"

"Now that you mention it, Sakura seems a lot more focused on her training. Haruno-san told me that she had been training whole days for more that a week." Said Ino thinking with a puzzled frown on her face. "I haven't seen Chouji too closed lately and his usually gone after training is done."

"I see. Sakura hadn't come to play some shougi for a while and Chouji had been training a lot lately. I don't know, he seems that he is not himself… This is so troublesome."

"I know! Maybe they are competing to see who is the strongest!" exclaimed Ino just to be the receiver of Shikamaru's "WTF" look. "Ok, ok, geez. Stupid on my part."

"Anyway, I don't know where Sakura is, but I know Chouji's." said Shikamaru standing up. "Are you coming?" he said to Ino without turning his back while he started to walk away. Ino just shrugged before fallowing him.

* * *

><p>"Thank you." Said softly, more like a whisper, Tsunami to Yugao, who passed her a cup of tea. Her hangover was almost gone, but she still had a minor headache bothering him. What did Kaiza would say if he saw her like this? She had intended to produce a alcohol induce death to join her family. Both his frits husband and Kaiza, the man that she had felt in love with were dead. Her father was dead, even Inari was… Tears began to fall from her bloody, puffy eyes, but she tried to stop them. This time was Genma that passed her a handkerchief so she could covert her weakness. After some tearfully, quite sobs, Tsunami recovered some of her dignity.<p>

"I'm sorry to break your painful moments, but there are things that need to be done," said Yugao.

"Okay, what do you need of me? And who are you for that matter?" said Tsunami, because this estrangers had entered her house, and helped her. She should be suspicious of them on principle, but she didn't care anymore, because she was nothing, of any value.

Realizing that they were still under their henge, both Yugao and Genma dropped their disguises. Tsunami, at the moment that she saw the headbands of the now revealed ninjas, turned her face full of anger and cold fury.

"You! You bastards! If was you Konoha that let my family died because the lack of money. Rot in hell. Did you come to finish the job?" said the distressful woman while getting up and starting to throw any object that felt in her grasp. Genma, acting quickly, substituted with a random piece of furniture behind the berserk woman and rapidly subdued her with ropes. Yugao was impressed to see the normally lazy chuunin in action.

"Oka, what was all that about?" asked Yugao kind of irritated.

"Like you don't know! You denied your service to my father because he didn't have enough money to pay, and know he and Inari are…" and with that, the enraged woman broke down again.

SMACK!

Yugao had slap the woman who had stopped her sobbing by the mere shock of being slapped more than the slap itself.

"Okay, I'm tire of your whining attitude. You will listen of what we know happened and later you will tell us what you know, understood?" Tsunami nodded silently.

"Oka, a little more of a month ago, Tazuna of Wave, arrived to Konoha to hired some protection for road bandits from Fire Country to Wave Country. He hired low level ninjas, a gennin squad to be precise with their jounin sensei. They departed from Konohagakure no Sato the next day. After two weeks without word, we sent another ninja to check their whereabouts just to discover that they had been assassinated along side their client."

Tsunami was in shock. She and the rest of the village had assumed that Konoha had denied Tazuna's requests because of the money when Gatou showed up in the public plaza with her father's head in one hand. Now, it seems that it wasn't the case, that or these ninjas were lying to covert their crimes, and it wasn't too far fetched given their profession. But something in her gut was telling her that they were truthful.

"Now, is your turn." Said Yugao sternly.

"Oka. More or lest a week after my father's departure, Gatou showed up in the village with a bunch of bandits and a nija next to him. He had… he had… he had my fathers head in his hand." Silent tears began to fall again, while Tsunami continued on, unable to stop, unable to stop her memory to surface again. "Gatou was pissed, because our actions against him and his _good will_, as he put it. He then ordered the bandits to attack and sack the village in retaliation. He also tried to order the ninja, but the man refused, saying something about some payment before disappearing in thin air."

"Is this the man that you are talking about?" asked Yugao putting in front of Tsunami a bingo book opened in a certain page. Tsunami nodded, identifying Momochi Zabusa as the culprit. She will never forget the bloodlust the man exuded the bandages that covered half of his face and the big sword trapped on his back.

Yugao cursed under her breath, after her suspicions were confirmed. Nonetheless, she motioned Tsunami to go on.

"We all try to escape after that, but many of us were unlucky. Me and my son, Inari, were found by a group of bandits, they were five" She stopped for a second, battling with herself about to continue. She didn't want to, she still could feel those monsters hands touching her. "They started to discuss who will be first to have a turn with me. Inari snapped, putting himself between me and then, like Kaiza." A sad smile, one that didn't reached her eyes, played for a second on her face, before disappearing between her sobs and tears. The next part was told in parts, because every time Tsunami had a relapse, and started to relive her torments again and again, but at last she could tell all her nightmares, her shame to them before collapsing in with high fever.

"He put a brave front, but one of them hit him hard, broking his jaw and one of his arms. After that resistance was out, three of them started to rape me at once. I was ashamed, but nothing prepared me for what they did. The other two didn't want to wait so they rape Inari, repetitively. I try to beg them to stop, to let him alone and will do anything that they ask me to, but it was for naught. When each of them was finished, they change positions and started again and again. I don't how much time had past but I will ever forget my Inari, my sochi, dead eyes then. He had died because the trauma. I was left there to die too, and would have, if one of the villagers hasn't found me and rescued me."

Both Yugao and Genma wanted to throw up, but they resisted. They had seen things far worse. Yugao still, was ashamed of her insensible actions earlier, but what is done is done. Genma, with one of his needles, put Tsunami to sleep fro hours, while they completed their mission. Nodding to each other, Genma and Yugao sprinted to action.

"_Tsunami, we swear that justice will be done."_ Were the silent thoughts of the enraged pair while they when towards where they knew was Gatou's main base.

* * *

><p>Hyuuga Hinata looked like calm's representative at the moment, with a grace full of serenity and peace. Nothing could be farther from the truth in her inner world. She had tired to mentally contact with Hiashi, but he didn't know more than her. Her gut was telling her that whatever was happening, it had to do with Hibana's disappearance, and her gut was telling her something else: things were going really, really wrong. Taking precautions, she spoke with Neji for a couple of minutes before heading toward the Hokage's tower with the ANBU agent on her trails.<p>

It was obvious that this ANBU was from Root, for the simple fact that she couldn't read him properly. Hinata had discovered that she could read the body language of normal ANBU really well and had taken as a practice to track down any ANBU in a 5 meters range and reading their movements through their body language, guessing what they would be ding next, all of this while she was meditating. At the moment, she had a max score of 92% of accuracy, with 22 ANBU's in action at one given moment; a personal best.

Root agents were different. Because Danzo's training, the agents were, quite literally, emotionally atrophied and thus, their brain didn't handle the body's stimuli in the correct order, and it varied form one agent to another. It was sad, but also, it was an edge that could save their lives one day, especially of they were in an undercover mission. But at the moment it annoyed Hinata to no end.

Reaching the Tower, Hinata was given to another ANBU with a Boar mask.

"Hyuuga-ojou-sama, the Hokage had request to meet with you on the Council Chambers." And with that, Boar started to walk away, obviously silently inviting her to follow. She did. Once again, the short trip was accompanied by the awkward silence typical of the ANBU. As far as she knew, it could be an underhand tactic to keep suspects out of balance and irritated, so they could commit mistakes more often.

Entering, she was internally surprised to find the whole shinobi council, bar her so called father, waiting of her. How she knew? Because, as soon as she entered, every single eye was on her.

"Thanks for coming after such short notice." Greeted the Hokage in his usually grandfatherly way. Hinata didn't buy it for a second. "Hinata-san, you had been called because we are investigating some things that had been brought to our attention, and you can give us clues about them."

Hinata only nodded. This was a whole fiasco and they knew it, now, how she could get out of there in one piece.

"Good. Now, we want to ask you a question: Where were you two days ago during the afternoon until evening?"

* * *

><p>"<strong>It seems that you may be able to make it…aibou." <strong>Said Inner Sakura to her host, so to speak, while Sakura was totally immersed in the formula calculations that she had designed. Its way to easy and she feared that she was mistaken, but she had triple checked with other methods of sealing designing, not that they were many, and the results were the same. The thing about Fuuinjutsu was that it was too unstable in their early stages, and one of the reasons way it wasn't too pursued more by the shinobi population. The monks use them the most, but for more practical issues, like storage, food preservation and the like. That's way Fuuinjutsu Masters like the late Yondaime Hokage and Jiraiya of the Densetsu no Sannin were so rare and valued. It was easy to brush a tad too hard on the scroll that one was working and blow himself up. She knew, it had happened a lot in their village, and in others as far as she knew; and it was the reason why Fuunjutsu wasn't allowed to be practice until a ninja was at least a Tokubetsu Jounin, or if you were a apprentice of another Master.

But Sakura have neither, and thus she had to fend for herself. It was hard, but she had got the knack of it really fast. And who could blame her, since her own sensei had thought her a failure, like everybody else. Her mother, a vocal support of Uchiha Sasuke even before the could recall, hadn't say anything to her and every time that they were together an awkward silence show it's ugly face.

"If you don't shut up my concentration could slip and we would end blown from here to Iwa." Snapped back to her alter-ego. She hadn't been able to sleep to well in the past few days. The nightmares were coming back more frequently, gruesome and with much, much horror. This time, it wasn't only a demonic looking Hinata and Naruto, but Sasuke as well.

Unknown to her, it was her inner, who was behind her back, destabilising her mental state further.

"**You know aibou, if you want, I can take more control of your subconscious and start filtering those dreams."** Said the inner very carefully.

"I though that you could that already."

"**Nop, it is _your_ mind after all." _Not for much longer. _"I'm just a part of you, a really small part, and thus, I need your permission to do anything." _Smooth, smooth._**

"Why you want to do it know?" asked Sakura, feeling off about all this.

"**Well, you did rise a point. You may be able to blow yourself if you continue like this, and, along you, little old me. I prefer to be alive much, much longer, thank you very much." _"Yes Sakura, give some control, I promise that I will be gentle with our body."_**

If Sakura would have been better rested and alert, then she would have recognized what wasn't adding up, but she wasn't. She was tired, under pressure, and her patience and temper were at their short end. Thus, she committed a mistake that will have repercussions for a long, long time.

"Okay. What I have to do?"

**"Nothing much, just will yourself to let more access to your mind... about 40% should be good, 45% to be sure." **

An Sakura just gave her that. Immediately she felt a little more relaxed, more focused and she notices that she had overdraw some symbols in her worn out state. Deciding to call it a day, the pinknette picked up her things before going home. Not even talking to her parents or eating anything, the youngest Haruno throw herself to her bed, falling sleep before hitting the pillow.

Two hours later, Sakura's body went rigid for a minute opening all of a sudden. At first glance, her eyes didn't see any different, but those that knew the pinknette at close, like Ino, Shikamaru and Chouji, would have noticed that her yellow eye was a tad too brighter. A grin, one that didn't vow anything good, appeared on the kunoichi's face, treating to split her head in half. She resisted the fit of laughter that was trying to overcome her, but managed it, if barely.

Silently, _Sakura_ (that for the time being will be called Saku), woke up, got dressed and got out of the house via the window. Sticking to the wall, she jumped a couple of house before landing in a dark alley. Making sure that she was along and hoping that the ANBU were nearby, Saku activate a special henge technique. To be more exact, a five layer henge. During the academy, in one of Sakura's classes she had heard how Sarutobi Sasuke, the Third's father, had coined the use of a double henge to fool his enemies if he got caught. Ever since them she had been wondering how safe will be to add other layers into it.

When you don't have nothing else to do while being locked in someone else mind, you start to wonder and experiment on anything that you are curious on. Saku was not an exception. With trial and error, the alter-ego had recreated the double henge technique. After the third layer the technique become unstable and, in some random cases, caused small chakra explosions. Sakura never knew why she had so many headaches for a week. But finally she succeeded adding a four and a fifth layer. She didn't have the time to add more, but she planned to.

For now, she was satisfied with the results. At the moment, she was henged in a 20 years old woman, with long black hair that was covering half of her face. Her body was not so plain anymore with the right curves in the right places (**AN: **Think about Lust from FMA). She wear a dark top tank that was tight skin on her, underlining her more than modest breasts, and a mini skirt, also dark in colour, not so different than the one Mirtarashi Anko used to wear. Her belly bottom was exposed along with her flat stomach.

Completing the set, black guards and gauntlets with metal trappings protected her arms and legs; a dangerous yet exiting sigh.

Saku, satisfied with her new look, enter a bar called _"The strange kunai" _that she found in the more…_active_ side of Konoha, which was too close for comfort of the Red Lights District.

Sitting down, Saku took note that most of the clients of the bar were shinobis raging from chuunin to jounin, and the occasional veteran genin.

"You are a knew face miss. Something that caught your attention?" the barman said without presenting himself. He was right to be wary since in a village ninja it was not uncommon to have spies trying to insert themselves as dormant agents for future sabotage and the like.

"Yeah, give the strongest think you have. I just returned from a long mission and need to clear my head with something." Said Saku. One can call it luck, but Saku had said, without noticing of course, a hidden password that the ANBU used to alert the barman, without telling him anything, that they had just came form assassination ,or something worse, mission and they really were shaken, in need of something strong to help them to cope.

The barman caught the meaning of the phrase immediately having dealt with many ANBU agents before, he being one himself. _"I guess she had been in a long term infiltration and sabotage mission. I think I had what she needs."_

"Here Miss, Rum from the Pirates in the South. It is rougher than sake, but is a lot stronger." Say the barman while putting in front of her a big bottle with a big crystal jar next to it. "By the way, I didn't catch your name Miss." This was verification that this woman was really a ninja of the village serving as one of Konoha´s special agents.

"They call me Cho, thought I fell like being Hana at the moment." And once again, Saku nailed the correct response. With that the barman relaxed after confirming that she indeed was a fellow comrade.

Oblivious to this, Saku gulped the first shot of Rum, resisting the burning sensation in her mouth and throat. She knew that if she gulped the alcohol, she would be drunk in seconds so she used her chakra to burn the liquid's fermentation, changing the alcohol to noting more than a bitter juice. Still, she acted a bit buzzed, putting a show of course, before taking another shot and repeating the process. It was risky to use chakra that way in a room full of experience ninjas, but to Saku, this was a golden opportunity to fireproofed her technique and kunoichi skills.

Not so far away she caught a chuunin with his headband tied in a way that the metal forehead was in the right side of his head. He wore sunglasses and he looked like he wanted to close their distance. Saku smiled suggestively; maybe this night will end better than she thought.

The chuunin took this as a sign of encouragement, so he left his place and approached her, sitting next to her.

"Good night miss…"

"Bettenou. Call me Bettenou." Said Saku, her smiled widening while winking to the chuunin who just smirked when he caught her checking him out.

A promising night indeed.

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><p>"… and that is what I had been doing the last four days." Finished Hinata with her report.<p>

She had been intensively questioned in the last 2 hours an a half and, while outside she had kept collected and calm, inside she was starting to loose her cool.

"Thanks Hinata, for your help." Said the Hokage in his usual grandfatherly way. "Now, Inoichi-san, what is your verdict?"

"It is confirmed Hokage-sama." Said Inoichi, his face totally pale and kind of exhausted.

"I see. ANBU!"

As cue, 9 ANBU agents made themselves known, with their ninjatos drawn and uncomfortably closed to various Hinata's body parts.

"I don't understand, what's going on?" asked Hinata, faking a tone of despair and confusion.

"Hyuuga Hinata, you had been accused and found guilty of the murder of Hyuuga Hibana, along side sedition and treason." Asked the Hokage, his personality having made a 180 degrees turn.

"_What? How? That's it, Inoichi! He read my mind, but what did he found to accuse me? Is he in league with the Hokage? Is even the Hokage behind all this? No, Inoichi isn't that good of an actor, he was truly shaken. That means that somebody had enter in my head an modified my superficial memories. But who? Who'… The only one that could do it was the Root that escorted me here. Though, it can be someone else. What to do? What to do? Let's find out." _Thought Hinata while the Hokage was talking. She changed her manoeuvre immediately to form confused to somebody that had been caught _in fraganti _and didn't feel remorse.

"Ara, ara," started Hinata. Even her voice was full of evilness and malice, mocking them, like they didn't understood what was really going on. "Pray to tell me, Hokage-_sama,_ what are those charges, where is the proof?"

"The proof is what Inoichi-san, having delved into your memory, discovered. That you, not only kill Hibana-san, but also used the power of the Kyuubi, with the help of Uzumaki Naruto to enslave your clan. This is treason." Announced the Hokage, while some of the present gasped while others tried to maintain their façade. The mere idea of their worst nightmare gaining its freedom scared them more than they would like to think, and it was worst since _it_ seems to be able to control others at _it's_ will.

"I see." Was the only thing, the only warning that the council received. _**"Dai Hou Kaiten!"**_

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><p>Morino Ibiki was hidden in the chambers during the whole ordeal, watching closely the prisoner, though she didn't knew that she was one until the right moment, to see what elsewhere had to tell with her body language. The Hyuuga were the best reading other people, but Ibiki, without their fable dojutsu, was the best.<p>

At the beginning, the body language of Hyuuga Hinata screamed confusion, wariness and insecurity while she spoke about her recent activities. Still, Ibiki had this gut feeling that she was hiding something else form everybody. This is why Inoichi was discreetly inside the girl's head. It was simply awesome to see his former sensei in action without anybody noticing his moves.

And then, the hammer came down.

Inocihi confirmed their suspicions and the Hokage rolled the true reasons of the meeting. It was then when the girl body language made a radical change. From confusion and ignorance, now Ibiki was reading surprise, contempt pride. The girl was without remorse about her deeds.

Poor Ibiki; he never knew that he was being played by Hyuuga Hinata.

* * *

><p>Shimura Danzou could barely contain his glee. He could already savour victory, the taste of a plan coming to fruition. That's when he heard the whispered words of the Hyuuga bitch that dared to destroy his plans.<p>

"I see." That was all that she said.

A huge dome of visible, spinning chakra appeared around the girl. Danzou, being the great ninja that he is, jumped out of harm's reach instinctively. Others were not so lucky.

When everything clear all, all ninjas around him could only gape (innerly, Dazou too was gaping, but for different reasons). If he didn't knew better, he would have said that it was a powerfull Hyuuga Kaiten. But there were discrepancies with that theory. First and foremost, the normal Kaiten required that the user spin so the chakra itself started to spin creating the chakra dome. Hyuuga Hiashi had discovered a way to only spin with one rotation to create it and his chakra did the rest, but he still needed to spin. This girl didn't move an inch. The other one was that the Kaiten had a certain range. Again, Hyuuga Hiashi could create a Kaiten with the double diameter bigger than the rest of his clan. This one, if could be called a Kaiten, was at least 15 times bigger than Hiashi's.

The third, and the most glaring, discrepancy was its power. It was true that if you were in the range of a Kaiten when it activates, you will suffer a lot of cuts and shredded skin, maybe a few broken bones and a concussion. The ninjas and shinobi in the technique's range that Hinata produce where, to put it mildly, shredded in to tiny little pieces. It was gruesome to watch. He even saw one of the ANBU that was near girl, if he recalled correctly his name was Tenzou, was missing an arm, and it looked like somehow was cut clean. The same could go for a man with his torso missing, only his legs standing, with the rest of his body nowhere to be seen, though Danzou suspected that may the missing body part was now part of the new red and brown paint in the walls and ceiling.

"Chase her!" ordered Sarutobi Hiruzen pointing to the new hole in the wall. It seemed that the girl had escape.

* * *

><p>Contrary to popular believe, Hinata was still in the council chambers, hidden under a genjutsu. It was amazing that nobody had detected yet, while everybody got out of the chambers to hunt her down.<p>

All suddenly she ducked out of the way of metal looking pole that made a swing towards her, dropping the illusion that was hiding her. In front of her was the Sandaime Hokage with the Monkey King Emma in his Adamantine form, facing her down with a serious and pissed glare.

"You are not Hiashi's daughter. She was weak and you are too strong. Who really are you? How you are able to use such powerful Kaiten without words, or that advanced genjutsu without words and seals?"

"Sorry Hokage-sama, that's a ninja trade secrete. And I'm Hyuuga Hinata, but I'm not her at the same time…" said Hinata preparing to battle the God of the Shinobi. Hinata knew that, despite all her powerfull skill, she would lose if the Hokage go all out.

"Are you Kyuubi possessing her?"

"No, she didn't posses me, not for the lack of trying. Minato's seal is too perfect to allow it. Though, in a way, you are not to far from the truth."

"So, you gain your abilities from it?"

Instead of answering, Hinata appeared in front of him with speed beyond of what she should be able of, palms blazing with chakra in the tail tale of a Juunken technique.

Sarutobi did a double technique at once: the Kage Bakuuha Bushin and the Kawarimi. A characteristic of being and SS class ninja was to be able to do multiple jutsus at once. A pre-step to achieve this was to learn the techniques and be able to use them without words and seals, witch wasn't to easy to perform, and it was ridiculously chakra taxing The Hokage himself could do six jutsus at once before being winded out. His plan was to substitute himself with his explosive clone, which would explode when the juunken strike hit its chakra coils. He did substitute himself with the clone, but when Hinata hit it didn't explode, instead, to the horror of the old monkey, it turned into stone.

"No way, that's…"

"**Juunken: Sekka Soushou.**" Said a voice next to his hidden spot. It seemed that Hinata also made a shadow clone to fool him.

Reacting instinctively, the Sandaime block the palm with his Adamantine Staff that, luckily, repelled the assault. Putting some distance between the two of them. Seeing his petrified clone, he couldn't help but regard the kunoichi in front of him in a new light.

"How?" the old ninja asked. "How are you able to use such technique? How you learnt it? Who taught it to you?"

"Who, you asked? I can't tell you because nobody taught me."

"That means…" whispered Sarutobi, wide eyed.

"Yeah. I recreated it myself."

**Juunken: Sekka Soushou, **_Soft Palm Style: Medusas's Javelin. _It was one of these techniques, like the Rasengan or the Hiarishin, that were so famous and powerful, yet impossible to copy or recreated without help of the inventor. Hyuuga Hirameki, the creator of the technique, and Hiashi's grandmother, was a monster in the battle field. His still could remember during his time as chuunin how the woman single handily created filed full of statues, enemies, victims to her infamous technique during the First Great Ninja War. After her dead, killed by the newly appointed Nindaime Tsuchikage, Mu the _Mujin_, in one of the last battles of that war, the Hyuuga Clan tried to recreate the technique, going so far as to analyze her corpses to get some answers. But to no avail. It was during the last stage of the Great Shinobi War that the Hyuuga Clan Head, Hiashi's father, declared the research futile, before closed it. And thus, the technique passed down to the forgotten pages of history.

Quite frankly, Sarutobi Hiruzen never thought that he would see the technique again in his natural life. It seems that he could still be surprised at this age.

"That's remarkable, and not and easy feat to achieve. For that, you had gained my respect. But sadly, we need to end this." Said the Hokage launching a taijutsu attack with his staff, that would have crippled a lesser shinobi, but at the moment that the staff collided with Hinata's defensive stance, she exploded.

**BOOM!**

* * *

><p>Shimura Danzou, out of principle, stayed near the tower, near the crime scene, to find some clues. The girl couldn't have gone too far before hiding. Now, where to look? His answer fall from the sky, quite literally, when an explosion coming from the Hokage Tower got his, and everybody else for that matter, attention.<p>

The power of the explosion itself was big because pieces of debris started to fly everywhere. One landing next to him, just to be revealed the Sandaime Hokage in his battle gi and adamantine staff summoned.

"That bitch! That freaking Hyuuga scum." Swore the Hokage without restraint. It seems that Hinata never left the tower and Hiruzen discovered this, sending away everybody out of the crossfire, and now his instincts were proven right.

"Care to elaborate." Suggested Danzou with wary. A pissed Hiruzen was hazardous to his health.

"She was a shadow clone, from the start, even before she entered the tower, even during our battle." Was the old man's rant.

If Danzou hearing was right, it means that after everybody got out the tower they had and impressive battle, one that obviously gain Hiruzen's full attention.

"How good was she (not in that way, you perverts)?" asked the old war hawk.

"Danzou" breathing deeply, "she knows Hirameki-dono's ultimate technique."

THAT caught his attention. Of course he knew of the _Medusa's Javelin._ Any ninja still alive form his generation, and they were a few, knew about it. _"Did the Hyuuga continued the research in secret after it was officially stopped? Hiashi's father was able to go to such lengths to make more powerful his clan. No, it doesn't make sense. Hibana should have reported this years ago, before she was controlled by Hinata's technique, it this was the case. What means is, if Hiruzen is so worked out to be fooled like this, that the girl recreated the technique herself. Yeah, that makes more sense. I am impressed. Hyuuga Hinata, you really are a true kunoichi."_

"Yurei!" called the Sandaime to a random wall that was nearby.

Immediately, an ANBU, no one that Danzou had seem before, appeared. The agent was different form the normal ANBU. The first thing was the he or she was covered, from head to toe, by a one piece pitch black fabric. The face was covered by a faceless mask, similar to the ones that FROST agents, Kiri's equivalent to Konoha's ANBU, used.

"Where did she go?" asked the Hokage.

"**The Hyuuga **_**Compounds.**_" Said the figure in a dual distorted voice (think of Arerino Arorurei, Novena Espada from Bleach).

"As I feared. Danzou," turning his gaze to the bandaged man, "take Root and go to the Hyuuga Compounds, and act to your discretion. I will join you as soon as I can. Yurei, take your usual place until further notice." The said Yurei nodded before disappearing, fading into nothingness, like he wasn't there anymore.

"_Amazing. No smell, no chakra, no presence, no noise. I was looking at it, and yet, I couldn't sense what was in front of me; a _Ghost _indeed. Hiruzen, you old bastard, how is that you are always ahead of me?" _Where Danzou's thoughts while he carried out his orders.

* * *

><p>Hinata had just finished her dealings with Neji, who was passed out in his bedroom, when the first group of ANBU Root arrived.<p>

Hours before, when the Root agent came to pick her up, she substituted herself with an especial variant of the shadow clone technique that she developed after her time travel. It had a fourth of her total chakra and abilities, but thanks to her control, it would be more than enough. But what did she do in that spare amount of time? Simple, she set her pieces.

Thanks to her **Fukoi Byukugan: Ashura**, Hinata had the total control of her clan, but this control was not infallible, and, with the right method it would broke under the right circumstances. That`s whay she had developed an advanced form of using **Ashura**; she called it **Kuraun. **

Kuraun was a technique that constantly sends certain order patterns to her clan skin subconscious. In the long run these patterns will overrule, so to speak, certain brain patterns of the Hyuuga whom would become totally her puppets. To put it in simple terms, it was like her mere desires, no matter how childish or ridiculous they are, would be their will and their decision. The best thing was that it was untraceable, and irreversible. It wasn't brainwashing, it was something deeper and it would not change who they were. It was turning their emotions, desires, dreams, nightmares, hopes, and the like in tune with hers. She would be their Goddess, and they would do anything, and I mean anything, to please her.

It requires certain elements to work though. The first thing was that the Hyuuga had the new seal on them, because the technique was deeply tied to it and because of this, the future generation would have their genetic code written in a way that they also would be her servants. The second thing was that she need to be in the village for more that 15 days, and if it was in the Clan Compounds the better, so the _tuning_, as she called it, could work efficiently.

After she had them under her control, Konoha was the next target. She had proposed, via Hiashi, to the Hokage that the Hyuuga become the new police force they, not only gain popularity votes within the villagers, but also they could, under her orders of course, draw a gigantic three dimensional seal, the new one used on the Hyuuga, so she could also seal the whole village. It would not be and easy task, but she was confident they would be able to manage.

She had still 6 other days to go, before it was complete, and now she new that her time was cut short by the Hokage and Danzou's plotting. But she was prepared, and that was making a difference.

Hinata choose Neji was a beacon, so to speak. She pulled him in private and activated the Fukoi Byakugan in him, which was extremely painful for him and taxing for her, at the same time that the Kuraun process accelerated in him to the point that, if she ordered so, he would stop breathing, even if he was unconscious. Hyuuga Neji was, under her orders, and she sent via the seal link the news, the new hidden leader of the Hyuuga, while Hiashi was still the poser of the Clan. After that, she proceeded to give him certain orders and objectives that she wanted him to do on her absence. Among them, they still would create the village sized seal so her plans could come to fruition. This process lasted hours, and was finished as cue when her clone exploded in the Hokage Tower, sending her the status of everything, and telling her that ANBU Root would be there at any moment.

She made it out of the compound when four squads of Root agents blocked her path.

"Hyuuga Hinata, you are under arrest. If you resist we will respond with lethal force. This will be the until warning." Said a random Root.

She was about to said something sarcastic, when a translucent dome of light covered the whole compound, leaving her out of it, and her skin trapped. _"A barrier, and powerful want if I'm correct. Damn, Danzou is not taking any chances. But this would work on my benefit on the long wrong. Like this the Hyuuga reputation will not be too affected and they become the new police force will be within the realm of possibility."_

This was the moment when Danzou, the Hokage, and the main shinobi clans arrived with a sizable enforcement of their own clans behind them.

"Wow, all this for me? I feel flattered." Said Hinata with a creepy sweet innocent smile that put uneasy on the presents.

"Hinata, surrounded now, we still can purified out the Kyuubi's taint that is in you." Pleaded the Hokage in a concern way. Danzou, Hinata and the Hokage himself were the only ones that knew that this was all an act.

"_Well, by chances to get out of here dropped to almost cero. It seems that I will have to use _that,_ though I haven't tested it yet. Well, no better time like the present."_ Everybody saw how the Hyuuga Princess eyes changed to something none of them had seem before.

Over her usual pale eyes, a tree pointed cross, with two points upside and one downside crossing her irises. Hinata just called the dojutsu name and technique with glee:,

"**FUKOI BYAKUGAN: BENZUATIN**" (AN: see the pic in my profile.)

Everybody discovered one thing when they where about to move out of the unheard technique's way: none could move.

Benzuatin was interesting technique. It takes all the particles on the atmosphere, being water particles or dust or anything pretty much, and use them as a barrier, but not for defense, but for immobilize. The best way to explain it was to imaging millions of little _rocks_ against one's body. By themselves, they were nothing, but because every single one of them were in the opposite direction of the target, focused on the target, it was like trying to pass through a reinforced titanium mesh with tiny little holes. It only lasted ten minutes, but it was enough to get out of there, and so she did.

Her Fukoi Byuagukan returned to and active normal Byakugan thanks to the strain of the technique but she still had her 360 degrees vision, so it was a great lost. That's what she though when all of a sudden her reminding chakra disappeared was she collapsed in an dark alley near the southern gates.

"_Why? How?" _she though since she could not even speak_. "My chakra…was sealed."_ Was her last thought when two silhouettes approached her. Hinata lost consciousness as she recognized Shimura Danzou and Sarutobi Hiruzen over her.

* * *

><p>"At last, Sai's especial sealing technique worked. I feared that she was also immune to it." Said Danzou to Hiruzen, who was still examining Hinata's form.<p>

"That technique that she used, I haven't encountered something like that before. And its range was huge too. If it wasn't by our shadow clones taking our position we also would have been neutralized." Said the Sandaime.

"Indeed. According to Fu, if we took out her eyes, the new Hyuuga seal will remain in place, but she would not be able to control them anymore." Answered Danzou. The whole ordeal didn't pass as he planned it but the results where acceptable.

"Proceed, and you have my support in trying to decipher out those eyes and see if other Hyuugas can activate this new mutation. If it is any as the Magenkyo Sharingan them a lot of our problems will be solved." Said the Sandaime, before walking away as ANBU agents, that where dispersed near the gates, arrived.

Danzou only nod without taking his eyes from Hinata before disappearing in a swirl of leaves.

It wouldn't be before years had passed when both veteran learn that the information that Fu obtained form Hinata's head was mildly altered.

* * *

><p>The early explosion in the Hokage Tower woke Sakura up, ending abruptly her peaceful slumber. She felt somehow sore, but was fully rested and now could think clearly. The explosion meant that the village could have been under attack so, following the protocol that she had been taught, gear up everything she could think of before reporting his squad leader, Kakashi-sensei. Fortunely, the crisis had passed when she reached him, so he dismissed her complimenting her quickness in her village defences.<p>

Sakura was annoyed, but kind of happy to be able to use her training to something. Deciding to make useful the rest of the day, the pinknette went to her private lab that, amazingly enough, hadn't been discovered yet. Her lab was an old building in the back side of the Academy. She had found it by accident in one of her adventures in her last days in school. Where she really worked was a hidden basement that seemed to be the hideout of somebody in the past. She theorized that maybe was a forgotten hidden HQ centre that was used in the village early days, during the First War, if the old dated scroll hat she found about some chakra control exercises and lesser techniques were anything to go by.

Sakura had cleaned the place and updated to fulfil its usefulness as much as she could, before bobby trapping it with every security seal that she new of or invented. She felt confident in her work.

After she entered, she discovered short note directed to her by her… other self.

_Aibou:_

_When you read this it will mean that you had overslept by two full days _(she checked the date and confirmed that she did sleep through 48 hours straight) _so I decided to let you rest while I finished our work. Yeah, you read it right, our baby is finished and you can use it as much as soon as you can. Check it over to confirm my modifications. Have some fun._

_Atte._

_Me_

Shaking her head at her alter-ego antics, Sakura proceeded to evaluate the full design of the Sealing Arrays that she had been working on ever since that faithful night when she saw Hinata and Naruto slaughtering people like it was a hobby of them.

When she finished, she couldn't help but being impressed. Her alter had purified some mistakes that she was having some problems with, and added some beautiful modifications.

The name of the Seal was **Himitsu** **Fuin: Shinsei Fukkatsu **(Secret Seal Art: Sacred Rebirth). It was, to put it in simple terms, a Bloodline Limit Technique Creator. Yeas, Haruno Sakura, former fangirl, supposedly the weakest member of her genin team, had defied all logic and accomplished what many people and many great ninjas had tried in the past: she had created a bloodline.

Her original idea, what that changed with the new status of her chakra, was to created a bloodline that give the user a perfect chakra control to an instinctual level. The chakra control was so great that she would be able to use with one hundredth of chakra techniques that other people would have problems with. Let's say, for example, that a normal ninja needs 50 points of chakra to create a shadow clone; she in comparison, would only need 0.5 points to create a shadow cloned with the same power or, with the 50 points, create 5000 shadow clones with the same power. It was obvious to see how a chakra base technique like that you be so useful, especial to a ninja like her who had too little chakra reserves naturally.

Now, with her new chakra handicap to use normal elemental techniques, Sakura decided to use more efficiently such power, and so her other self thought. The new modifications let her to regenerate chakra 200 times faster than normal. When normally a jounin would take to recover 5 or 6 days from chakra exhaustion, now it will be possible to her, if she had the same chakra reserves as the jounin, to recover in less than 24 hours. But the next, and in her opinion, the best feature of this new Seal was the secondary sensing function.

With it, something that her alter ego had named **Tengoku no Ryuuken **(Heavenly Hound), she would be able to track down anybody that she had met before from one side of the world to another. The theory behind it was kind of sketchy in her opinion, but it seemed to work. It was speculated that when a person is born, the new life takes the chakra from the Earth flux lines, and when a person dies, the chakra returns. If this was true, then if anybody could maintain an active link with this flux lines, then it was possible to track any specific person at any point of the planet, if you knew what chakra signature you were looking for of course (**AN: **Does this sounds familiar?). Not only that, but thanks to the new high sensing skills, she would be able to know how a person model the chakra on them before realising a jutsu, virtually given her the ability to copy it, if she could see what kind of hand seals were being use. She may not be able to use elemental chakra now, but at least she would know what kinds of techniques were targeting her.

A perfect bloodline for a shinobi and, in her opinion, something a lot more original than a stupid pink eye technique (hint, hint).

Satisfied, Sakura striped out her clothes before starting to draw ink lines on herself after memorizing the seal. After almost three hours of constant drawing, Sakura finished. Sadly, the pinknette didn't notice that some symbols, that weren't there before, appeared slowly before Sakura activate the technique.

"**Himitsu** **Fuin: Shinsei Fukkatsu.**" Immediately, the seal arrays started to glow in eerie green light.

That's when the light show became, first blue, and the dark red and black, and that's when Sakura knew that something was terrible wrong before her world became one of pain.

Through the all the village, a huge chakra pulsed was felt before disappearing without trace.

Hidden in a root by the shadows, two men in black cloaks with red clouds and straw hats feel the sudden surge of energy. One of them only showed read eyes with black tomoes markings on them through the strawhat veil while other had a huge bandage sword on his back and had his skin all blue.

"_That's an interesting way to welcome me back, Konoha…"_ Was the thought of Uchiha Itachi before disappearing with his partners to check the source of such power.

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Cut!

And how it was? Wow, it is my longest chapter so far, and I hope that you had enjoyed it.

This is long and awesome because of the delay and also becouse I will be immersed college exams for the next ten days or so, and I will be unable to writte for a while.

Nobody guessed, but Nonayamo Rikka, Ikki, Akito and Ringo characters were taken form the maga **Air Gear**. Also, the conversasion between Oogway and Asuma was an adaptation from a diologue in the movie **The Mommy Returns.**

about some jutsus:

**Juunken: Sekka Soushou.** It isn't a technique that I created. This was originaly from **Nes Nikel **story **Medusa Javelin** and **Garden of Sanctuary.** (the only NaruSaku story that I will recomend to any one.) Later it will be better explained later.

**Dai Hou Kaiten **is something that I took from Third Fang and it means Great King Hevenly Spin.

About the Fukoi Byakugan, that will need an expanation of its techniques.

**Emma-O: ** King of Hell. He lives the good life in a large castle covered in gold, silver, pearls and jewels. His judgement is relatively simple. If you have killed an innocent human being you go into a cauldron full of molten metal. There is a get out clause. If after your crime you made a pilgrimage to all 33 shrines of Kwannon you may be excused metabolism.

For the story sakes, Emma-O warps the time perception of people at the same time that enhance the physical speedn and reflexes, making it that everything is like is not moving for the user, no matter how fast it is, at the same time that the body reacts at the same speeds of its senses. The ultimate hand to hand combat technique.

**Ashura: **Is considered in the hindies religions and in the budhism, the dark deities oppused to the good forces, the Devas. Is also the God Guardian of the Time.

Here, is the absolute mind control technique that will play a great part on the history.

**Benzuatin: **Also known as Benten or Benzai. Is the Goddess of Fortune. The only Goddess among the SHICHI-FUKU-JIN team of Good Luck Gods. Love, sea, music and literature are among her specialities. Ben out of ten for this one.

Benzuatin, as explained, controls the atmosphere particles and use them to paralyze the enemy. It has a devasting range and efficiency but can only be use for ten minutes max. Alsp, after the time is up, the Fukoi Byakugan cannot be use for the next three days, though the normal Byakugan can be use.

**Isanami: **Just google this one becuase is huge. Later it will be explained in the story what it does. Just a hint, it is related to the Magenkyo Sharingan Technique Izanagi ^^


	4. Rising Wave

**Chapter 3: Raising Wave. Crimson tides that reach your feet, Naruto.**

* * *

><p>"<em>A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer."<em>

* * *

><p>It was silent, maybe too silent to be natural. He felt that something was up, a sensation of wrongness that was almost palpable in the air. Maybe it was guilt, maybe it was the lack of good sleep ever since he accepted this job. His conscience, if he had any left, was working against him and it would be his downfall. He didn't have a name, or at least he wasn't born with one, so as he grew up, he called himself <strong>Kizuato<strong>, because his all life, his own body, was full with scars. Even after all the difficult times he found love with a humble young woman that live as a farmer, one that he met in one of his searching for job and food. Her name was **Iyasu**, and she was a true healing, a balm for his soul. They got married, and started a new as humble farmers, and soon they were blessed with a wonderful and beautiful little girl that they named Hina. Sadly, life was cruel, unforgiving, uncaring.

A secret war between ninjas, between Kumo and Konoha if the rumors were correct, destroy their country, their lands, and claimed the life of his family. The tragedy destroyed him. After that, a shadow of what he once was sunk in the bottom of a sea of sake and drugs. He became addictive and soon found himself looking for jobs, ANY jobs to pay for his vices. It was when he let another man to had his way with him that he recognized that he had reached bottom and he could let himself to low himself more, because it wasn't possible.

He struggle for a while , but he overcome his addiction to drugs and limited his alcohol. I took time and tears, but he succeeded. Sadly, he didn't learn form pass mistakes and fell into gambling addiction, incurring in debts that became too much for him to bear. And like that, he became a mercenary, the lapdog for a man called Gatou. If had taken 6 years of had work to pay his debts and this would had been his last job before he could call it even. He had nightmares of the things that he had done, but soon he would had been free.

So focused on his goal was Kizuato at the moment, that he never felt two kunais, one embedded in his forehead and other in his neck. Like that, Kizuato's sad life came to an end. He would be one of the last of all the bandits/mercenaries that were under Gatou's command.

Silently, Shiranui Genma stepped out of the shadows of the night to pick the body of the mercenary guarding the clearing where he was, before moving to the next target. His hob was to take every single bandit in the perimeter while Yugao set tags with sealed deathly poison around the main bandits camp that was southern of Gatou's HQ. After he killed the last bandit the hoot of an owl, Yugao's signal, told him that everything was set. Getting out of there quickly the chuunin felt how various chakra spikes in random directions got on and off in and instant, with mean that in four or five minutes, hundreds of bandit would be death.

"Ready to go?" asked Yugao to Genma while he took a deep breath. He heated assassination missions, they were the reason why he left the ANBU, but he understood why it was needed. Oh well, it was better to get the job done.

"Yeah, just trying to maintain focus. I'm ready when you are." answered Genma to which Yugao only nodded before taking chase in a direction. Genma looked back for second before following the purple haired.

* * *

><p>Infiltrating Gatou's base was easy enough, While they were doing it, they scattered tags with sealed sleeping gas to make the job easier, which it did. It took almost an hour, because the base was of a considerable sizes, but both ninjas were experience with this type of situation so the job was relatively easy. After securing their breathing masks, that Yugao always carried with hear in an scroll.<p>

Fifteen minutes later and everybody inside the HQ's were slept. Finding Gatou himself was easier said that done, but they manage. A business tycoon tied later, both of them started to recollect every bit of information that they could find. Gatou was very meticulous with his finances so it was easy fro them to understand what was what and why. Still, with all the dealings, legally and otherwise, that were run by the short man next to then, it took then hours to touch the surface of all it.

"Yugao, look at this." said Genma after hours of concentrated silence. In his hand was, maybe, one of the most valuable piece of information for them and fro Konoha. A thick group of folders that were labeled as "**Posible clients**". But what was important was inside: very detailed profiles of ninjas in the bingo book and other ninja villages, about their forces, their ranks, even some information about ANBU agents. This last one horrified them because they found their names on it with a very specific and updated amount of information about their abilities and skills.

How a low tug like Gatou could amass all this information, some of them so secret and valuable that wars could be fought just to get them? Something was wrong, something was very wrong here.

* * *

><p>Uzumaki Naruto had just crossed legged in front of the shrine's door when he noticed that it had a carved spiral in its centre. He just stay there for some minutes when he noticed that the spiral glowed for a second. Puzzled he was about to get a closer look when he noticed that, on his palm, a similar spiral in black ink appeared out of his skin. Looking back and for form his palm to the door, he got the idea before putting the palm on top of it.<p>

He felt how a the door pinched him in the centre of his palm, where the middle of the spiral was, drowning some blood. The there was a white flash that blinded him for a couple of seconds. Blinking a few times, Naruto noticed that he was standing on his legs and inside of a wood house that he guesses was the inside of the shrine.

"_How I entered? I didn't move nor I felt anything making me move. I did`t felt anything period, aside from that sharp sensation on my palm."_ thought Naruto while looking around absentmindedly taking note that his palm was already healed.

That's when something in the air changed putting him on guard, even if whatever it was didn't felt malicious.

Out of thin air, and quite literally, a girl appeared. She had long brown hair and a black kimono with flowering bright coloured designs all over it. Her mid section was covered by a wide golden obi, and, in her hand, holding a blue translucent umbrella (**AN: **See the pic on my profile). She was, in one word, beautiful, but since she wasn't Hinata she wasn't his type.

"Welcome Uzumaki Heir, I have been spectating you for a while now." said the girl in a childish yet angelic voice.

"Who are you? Are you an spirit?" asked Naruto. His gut was telling him, and he trust his gut thank you very much, that whoever this girl was, she wasn't normal.

The girl only chuckle cutely in amusement. "You can call me Rimi, and I'm not human if you are wondering. I'm something...different." This last part was said less cheerfully and Naruto caught her tone so he asked her a about.

Surprised by her question, Rimi decided that, since she hadn't any reason to hide her history, agreed to share, not sure why though.

"As I told you before," she begin. To Naruto it looked like she was lost in the past while telling him her tale, "I'm not human. I was created, albeit by accident, by my father: Uzumaki Hyuoma, He.."

And thus, the life of Rimi was unfolded to Uzumaki Naruto. Her memories, her sadness, her dreams, her goals, her doubts, everything.

And yet, nothing.

* * *

><p>When she finished Rimi felt like something heavy was taken off from her shoulders. Before she noticed she was smiling in relief.<p>

"Rimi doesn´t understand," she began say, "why she is feeling like this." putting her hand on her ghostly chest. If she have had a heart she knew that it would have been beating really fast.

"You were feeling lonely," answered Naruto, "like you were going to fade away, without the world caring for you. Now that you have told me about you I promise you that I will remember you for the rest of my life. And I never break my promises."

"You speak to Rimi like you understand." It wasn't an accusation, but a statement.

"Because I do. I was like you until _she_ found me, and acknowledge me. Can I share with you mind history as you had share your with me'"

Rimi only nodded, unsure how to proceed, so she just listening him, all his life and his burdens.

* * *

><p>When the talking was done, both of them felt a sense of understanding, a sense of brotherhood.<p>

"Well, is better if we start to pass you your legacy." Started Rimi, now the moment that have been waiting had arrive.

"What I do?"

"Well, I`m going to check your blood and examine what is left of your seal, so the process is not compromised. Please, let some drops of blood here." She said, pointing to a seal array that was engraved on the floor. Naruto did as he was told biting his thumb, strong enough to draw blood from it.

Meanwhile, Rimi put her ghostly hand on his uncovered stomach and closed her eyes. She stood like that when she open her eyes barely holding back a gasp.

"What happened?" Naruto asked her.

"Rimi is confuse. Despite the Kyuubi is not inside Naruto-san anymore, Rimi found something stored in the seal. Does Naruto-san wants Rimi to take it out?"

"Yeah, please do, if is not hazardous to my help."

"Naruto-san doesn´t need to worry. Naruto-san is on Rimi's safe hands."

And with that the brunette put both her palms sending a rippling pulse, or at least what Naruto felt it was, into his stomach. Soon, she made a graving motion, like she was physically pulling something from his stomach, which she was. Two colourful translucient clouds were pulled with some effort from his belly. Frankly, Naruto felt weird and freaked out, but before he could panic, the process was complete.

Slowly, both clouds started to take shape, resembling two human adults, before starting to solidified. Naruto saw all this and, when the clouds finished their metamorphosis into people, he was in shock, because he couldn't believe his eyes. In front of him were the two persons that he didn't expected to see in hi whole life.

"Father, mother, why? How are you alive?"

* * *

><p>"Asuma-sensei, who was that man, the one that you speak in a weird language? And what kind of language was that? I haven`t heard anything like it before." Asked Yamanaka Ino to her sensei. The mission was weird and it didn't make a lot of sense to her. Why do they have to travel so far just to pick up some heirlooms from Naruto's family? Of course, the news that Naruto had a clan before was good for the usually lonely blond, but still...<p>

"Well, his name is..." but whatever he was about to say was cut short by a bright flash of light coming from the shrine where Naruto _just_ approached.

After the flash of light disappeared leaving a blond figure behind. What they saw awed them. The spiky blond head was recognisable enough,though it was longer, passing his shoulder blades. Ino could see that, when before his dark clothes hid his physic, now his body was ripping with hard looking muscles; not like a bodybuilder, but at least twice the muscle mass that he had before. And his eyes, in Ino's opinion, changed from his usually deep sea blue to a pair of bright azure suns. He looked calm, like a weight was taken from his shoulders, but at the same time looked pale and tired.

And on his waist was a long katana, a nodachi is she remeber correctly, that had both the hilt and the sheath in a crimson colour.

"Sorry to made you wait for so long for me. We can go now." Said the blond that was taken back by team 10 confused faces.

"What do you mean Naruto? It haven`t mean five minutes since you entered the shrine." Say Shikamaru suspecting what was happening. _"Or he was caught in a genjutsu that messed up his time perception senses, or somehow the time flow in that shrine is different."_

Naruto by his part was pondering over this development of events. _"So that's what you mean Rimi. Sneaky. I'm so impatient to recreate that time warping seal."_

"_What? A sword? We came all the way here juts for a freaking useless sword?" _were Ino's rampaging thoughts

But all their musings were cut short by Sarutobi Asuma's yell/question.

"Naruto, where and how did you get THAT katana?"

* * *

><p>"So, let me guess this straight. What you really received was a new gekken genaki that one of your ancestors created?" asked Ino to Naruto, who just finished, hidden a lot of information and giving a nice amount of BS, the tale of what had happened inside the shrine. Naruto nodded to her question.<p>

"And this sword" pointing to the red katana on Naruto's waist, "was from your mother's, who somehow sealed in you when you were a baby until you were ready to use it?" again, Naruto nodded.

At the moment, Team 10 and Naruto were heading back to the town to meet Yugao and Genma. They were bewildered when the shrine, after Naruto stepped out of the wood bridge, was surrounded by a black translucent sphere before disappearing like it never had been there. It surprised everybody, everybody except Naruto, who just feint ignorance as them.

Asuma, on his part, was thinking about what Naruto had told them and about the sword. Contrary to what Ino believed, the sword was far from useless. Actually, that red katana was one of the highest and finest works of sword forging and fuunjitsu. And only one person wielded that sword during the last war, only one person who was the only one in Konoha, being a SS kunoichi, that could match the Fourth in a fight. Yeah, Konoha's Red Death was a nightmare tale between the children of the enemy and her sword, oh her nightmarish sword that cut into tiny little pieces hundreds of shinobi at once, was something beyong useless.

Yeah, Uzumaki Naruto was the son of Uzumaki Kunshina, and a testament of that was that he was carrying one of the most famous swords in existence, baring Kiri`s one; the one and only **Benizakura.**

* * *

><p>When the group arrived into the town they noticed that it looked deserted. The streets, the ones that were full of beggars and crushed people before, now were totally empty. It was creepy, and Asuma was thinking that something really bad happened.<p>

"Ino..." Asuma started, facing the blond.

"On it." Answered Ino, who had her eyes closed and her hands forming the Monkey Handsing. "There is a large concentration of people on the centre of the town. They seem agitated and I think that Uzuki-san and Shiranui-san are there too." Answered her after a minute or so.

"_Ino is a sensor type? Who would have guest?"_ thought a surprised Naruto, who just raised and eyebrow.

"Good, we gona go there ASAP." And with that the group broke in a small race.

When they reached the mob they discovered why the people of Wave was so agitated.

In the middle of them was none other than Gatou, pretty much covered in ropes crying for mercy. In front of him was Yugao, next to Tsunami, who had a kunai on her hand. It was obvious that, somehow, she and Genma had tracked down Gatou's main base and captured him. And now, Yugao was giving them a chance to finish with their own hands their nightmares, the source of their fear and despair. And Tsunami was the perfect candidate to finish their predicament.

Tsunami, on her part, was looking between the kunai blade and the man that took everything tht she had cherish from her. She could help but hear the voices of her love ones in her head.

"_If you had something important to you, you need to protect it with your own hands."_

"_Chichue, please, don't go. Gatou would kill you too." "I know it, daughter of mine, but still, I cannot leave that man to destroy everything that I had worked for, that Kaiza had worked for. You and Inari are everything to me, and I will be damned if I let your future to be stole while I was doing nothing to prevent it."_

"_Leave my mom alone, you bastards. Come, take your anger and sick desires upon me. LEAVE HER ALONE!"_

With tears on her eyes Tsunami took her decision and started to walk toward Gatou, the man that she once thought was invincible. _"No more. I will not let anyone to walk over my hoe again."_

"Please, I beg you, had mercy. I will pay you everything that you one, let me go, I swear that I will never return here." The desperation in Gatou's voice, while quite genuine, didn't move his captors and his victims. All of them were looking at him with stone, cold eyes.. uncaring, unfeeling sympathy toward him, the man that ruined their lives.

"This is the mercy that my little _sochi _received, that my familu recieved." And like that Tsunami descharged all her anger, all her hate, all her despair, her helpless, her frustrations, all of her torments, on that man. The kunai pierced his longs, his liver, his kidneys, his hart, his face... several times. When Tsunami was done, Gatou's body looked more like a large piece of minced meat.

The distressful woman let herself fall on the floor, like kneeling, while crying freely forr the firts time in a while. Every single person in the town also cheer and cry. AT LAST, THEIR NIGHTMARE WAS GONE!

It was obvious that a party was on the top of the list, to celebrate and to mourn. But Tsunami was there, on the floor, still crying, still with her head down with a thud on her heart. Maybe it was for one of this reasons, maybe because all of them or because of none. No one knew, not even himself, but Naruto walked toward her until he was facing her down. Tsunami may had noticed his shadow over her because she raised her face to see him in confusing, but not really caring, with her puffy red eyes. They were like that, Kami knows for how long, but at some point everybody had noticed it and had gone quiet. Yugao was among them, but for different reasons. She, being a kenjutsu expert, recognized the sword on his waist all too well. There wasn't a swordsman worth of his salt in the whole world that didn't recognize it.

"Wh...at, what do you want?" asked, or croaked, Tsunami's weak voice.

Naruto didn't say anything, just stared into her eyes, and she did the same. She found something that she wouldn't taught possible in anybody else, specially someone his age; she found understanding. She wanted to hug him, to comfort him. She didn`t knew what had happened to him, but she knew, she just knew with Kami at her witness, that it had been as bad as her, or even worst. But she couldn't, she didn´t have neither the emotional or physical strenght to do so. But she saw, to her relief, that he understood.

Naruto nodded to her, and she nodded back. Then, what happened next changed the course of History into a new path to follow, Naruto took Benizakura and extended it to her.

"Uzumaki, what the heck are you doing?" yelled Yugao, ready to stop the brat to give away one of the most valuable possessions the Konoha had the right to have. Any swordsman worth their salt, and Yugao was very worthy, would do anything to have that blade on their hands. It was a blasphemy to see one of her desires being full filled in front of her eyes.

Yugao was silenced by a wordless glare from Naruto. Tsunami on her part was unaware of all of this, all she could see, all she could _hear _was the majestic and beautiful jewel in front of her.

_Take me._

It was suave. Smooth, tender. It was like the gentle tone of a queen cuddling her king.

_Wield me._

The voice was sultry, like the temptress invitation of a lover. Tsunami could feel it, the sword, cherishing her senses.

_Use me._

The sword was hugging her, embracing her in comforting arms.

_**CALL MY NAME!**_

Tsunami didn't know when she stood up or when she took the sword from the blond genin hands, but as soon as she took the hilt she draw the sword while whispering a short, quite phrase. A whisper that was carried away by the wing to all the ears present.

"**Rise above the Heavens, BENIZAKURA!"** A flash of crimson light. The world seemed to darken leaving the shining woman like a minuature sun on earth. It just lasted a second, but everyone, even the civilians, who recognized the name of the infamous blade, could feel the power coming form the red katana in waves.

And as it came it went out.

When the light show receded, Tsunami had change. She was the same beautiful woman as before, but know, the worry lines on her face and the stress on her body had disappear. Her hair was as long and as black as before, but it had two hair locks in red on the front of her head (**AN: ** Think like Rogue from Xmen but instead of white, red). Maybe the most glaring difference was the beautiful red and black kimono that now covered her body.

In shock, the villagers from Wave had all kneel in reverence of what they had seem. One of her own had been selected by one of the 10 Sacred Blades in front of them, and thus, it will make her their new leader.

"People of Wave," Tsunami started to speak. her voice was soft, yet strong, gentle yet persuasive, full with authority, full of royalty, like a queen and the blade on her waist confirmed it; "for long we had been oppressed. We have been stripped from our pride and our rights. No more. I ask for your loyalty and your strength, and I swear to you, by the powers that be, that I will lead you and protect you form now on."

There was any hesitation form the villagers, they knew what the needed to do. "We swear to you that we will follow you even into the pits of the ninth ring of hell." they said as one.

"Then, rise Wave!" Tsunami said taking her sword that shined with crimson light while the villagers rose up and start yelling in joy.

"_**From now on, we will covered the earth with the blood of our enemies." **"Indeed, we will."_

* * *

><p>The group departed from the new nation two days after. It had been an emotional trip fro everybody involved. Asuma, Genma and Yugao were royally pissed with Naturo because he give away, to a civilian no less, a precious weapon, and they intended to inform the Hokage about it, with hopes that maybe they would be able to retrieve it. When asked why he did what he did he only answered <em>"That katana was one of my <em>mother_ precious possessions and now it is mine to do as I pleased."_

Needlessly to say that they adults didn't like the response but stopped pestering him after that. The group still remembered the short conversation that, now named, Lady Tsunami had with Naruto before departing.

* * *

><p><em>"Uzumaki Naruto, thank you... for everything." said the woman while looking directly into his eyes. He only nodded understanding what wasn't being said.<em>

* * *

><p>Yugao and Genma were also tense for other reasons. After discovering the amount of intel that Gatou had, they, with the help of one of Yugao cat summons, asked for a full interrogation torture/ retrieve ANBU squad with urgency, witch arrived ours later. Tenzou was leading them and he took the dossiers personally to the Hokage while of the black op. agents created an special blood clone with one the hostages that were left alive to make it look like Gatou himself. Yeah, the man that Tsunami killed was decoy while the real Gatou was taken for an appointment into Ibiki _tender_ hands.

After the ANBU group had secretly departed with Gatou banking information with full intentions to cash it all to Konoha's behalf, Yugao took the amount of money that belonged to Wave people, plus some interested, to return it to its rightful owners. Gatou, being the finance man that he was, kept a detailed record of all his money transactions, legal and not, so it was easy to distribute the money to the people it belonged.

In all, both parties got a win-win situation. Still, the group didn't knew what type of knew bloodline Naruto got, and were very curious of it. Speaking about the quiet blond, he seemed distracted for a while now, and his wasn't paying attention to his surroundings, or at least it looked like it.

Chouji decided to ask what everybody had in mind. "Hey Naruto, are you okay? You have been looking...off, for a while. "

He didn't answered immediately, so the big-bonned genin was was about to repeat himself when the blond acknowledged him. "I'm okay Akaimishi-san, is just that..." but whatever he was about to say, he cut with a yell that confused the group, "HINATA!"

And before anybody could register what he had said, Naruto disappear in a flash of light. A yellow flash of light that the adults recognized immediately.

"That...that was..." stuttered Yugao and Asuma in disbelief.

Genma only nodded, he recognise the jutsu that the Fourth had entrusted him and his other two friends. "Yeah, that was the **Hiriashin no Jutsu.**"

One thing was in the mind of the ninjas: What in Kami's name had happened in that shrine?

* * *

><p>Naruto appeared in a cell, a underground one at that. Behind him was Morino Ibiki, Yamanaka Inoichi and Himura Danzou, whom where visibly surprise by his flashy-pardon the pun- arrival, though he didn't pay them any attention. No, his eyes were only fixed on the vision in front of him, or nightmare would be more accurate.<p>

There, clutched on the floor was the bruised form of his beloved Hime. He noticed the bloodied bandages covering her pale face and he didn't wanted to think about what they implied.

Trembling, calling her name softly, Naruto approached her taking her on pressing her on his chest while trying to smooth her trembling form. Kami, she looked so thin, so delicate, like she was made of glass and was quickly cracking.

"Hina-hime, my love, please answer me." Naruto called her, desesperation on his voice.

"Na..r..kun. Is..t...you?" said her raspid voice before collapsing in blesses unconsciousness.

Naruto didn't noted that the adults in front of him were postioning themselves around him, getting ready for a fight. Not that he noticed that increasing numbers of Root agents outside the cell, being called by Danzou without anyone noticing.

"Why?" he only ask. "Why her?"

"It's simple. She was with you." answered Danzou making look himself as a villian. If anything went wrong, the blond would be focused on him instead of Inoichi and Ibiki, both invaluable assets to Konoha forces.

"As long as I have lived I had been shunned and abused, and after I knew why I understood it, and accepted, even if I didn't like it. I din`t feel anger or hate toward any of you, only pity." he still had his gaze down upon Hinata, watching her soft and paused breathing. "But now," standing up,while everybody tensed, "you dared to touch my heart, my pride, my Hime...".

And _it_ came. It was dificult to describe, to comprehend. The closest thing to _it _was the Kyuubi, with its malice and nauseous KI. But this wasn't like it, no, it was thousands times worst. Kyuubi's KI was dispersed adn feral, this one was focussed and morderous. The worst of it? They couldn't feel an once of youki, meaning that all this was Naruto.

The present shinobi received the brunt. Some of them, like Danzou and Inoichi where plastered on the floor, unable to move, feeling like something ridicously heavy was pressing them againts the floor... like a mountain. Others, like some Root agants, simply died from a heart attack or a stroke. They were not the only ones, becuase the WHOLE village feel the ungodly wrath of the jinchuuriki.

It wasn't fear. Fear could be overcome, accepted, surpassed. No, what they felt was pure, unadulterated terror. For the firts time the village had recognized how much they had screw things ups.

.

.

.

.

CUT.

Translations.

**Kizuato**: scars

**Iyasu**: to heal

**Benizakura**: Crimson Cherry Blossom

**Hiarishin no Jutsu**: Thunder Flying God Technique.

Nas! I bet that any of you saw that one coming, ne?

Next chapter will be explained what the heck had happened between naruto, minato and kushina, and also what had happened with Rimi (by the way, I gonna post a pic on my profile of her, so you can go an check it^^).

This chapter was kind of difficult and it was longer, but I decided to leave it there for the suspense (yeah, I'm so evil with all this cliffers...and I like it). So, what do you think? I hpe that it wasn`t too confusing.

R&R

pd: By the way, I had post another NaruHina story called **Forsaken/Forgotten: Swirling Tides**. I invited you to go and check and comment what do you think.

pd2: a concerned reviewer point out that I had put Ino instead of Inoichi in the Hinata turtoring scene. Thank you anonymous reviewer, even if I tripple check this, errors find their way to print themselves TT_TT


	5. Interlude: The power of a name

**Interlude: The power of a name. Calle it out with all your might, Naruto.**

* * *

><p><em>"And so with all things: names were vital and important." -<em>Alergnon H. Blackwood-

* * *

><p><strong>Taka no Sato, somewhere in Bird Country.<strong>

"I hoped that I will never see you again, Jiraiya." I said, aware that I was slightly drunk. It was a surprised for me when a couple of hours earlier the pervert found us , me ans Shizune, getting out of a casino. Danm, I knew that winning so much in the last couple of games was a bad omen.

"Well, what can I say Hime? Your beauty calls me from afar." he said in his usual irritating flirting manner. He nevers give up, as annoying as always.

"Stop bablering around you idiot and get to the point or I will leave." It is a good thing that I sent away Shizune earlier or she would have been scolding my rudeness, good ridrance I say.

Jiraiya, of course, took the hint because his face changed in one full of sirousness, as unlikely the mere concept of something sirious in his head was.

"Sensei want you to come back home."

"Absolutely not!" I shouted, loosing my cool. I didn't care. That danmed village had took everything that was important to me, I refuse to give up something else. "I will not return that hellhole."

"I know how you feel, but this time is different. He even is making an offer this time."

It wasn't the firt time that Sarutobi-sensei had tried to take me back, but this was the first time that he reached an offer, I know all to well that his offers were nothing to scoff off. Despite the yelling of my common sense, and my gut, telling me to never listening that danm pervert and get the hell out of there ASAP, I decided to go against my better judgement, raising an eyebrow in silent permission for him to continue.

"I don't know all the details, but I know for sure that he will give you TOTAL reing over all medical aspects in Konoha and... he is willing to pay for ALL your debts."

Now, that is an offer that it was practically impossible to say no. Danm you sensei!

* * *

><p><strong>Northwest the borders of Fire Country and Wind Country, fifty km to the north.<strong>

"Damn you Itachi. The little girl is slowing us down." said the irritated voice of Hoshigaki Kisame to his ever stoic-faced companion, while looking behind pass them, whe rea pink haired girl was, walking as fast as she could under the unmerciful sun, as they had been for days now, ever since they got out the Hidden Village among the Leaves.

She was no older than twelve years old. Uchiha Itachi's Akatsuki cloak was wrapping her while bandages were covering her chest and womanhood. Kisame didn understand what had Itachi so worked out, even if the patricide nin didn't show it, about this genin. The events of their last day in Konoha still fresh in his mind.

(Flashback)

_After they had felt that surge of energy the two missing nin traced it to its origin somewhere in the forest behind the Ninja Academy. What they saw didn't face them in the slightest, but made them curious. In front of them was the obviously recent destroyed building, with the buch of rubble and debris laying around. Kisame was ready to get the hell out of there when he noticed that Itachi's attention was caught by something to his left. Double checking, the blue skinned shark-man watched how Itachi walked over whatever he saw before kneeling on the floor. He only could her midly surprised gasp from the man (which in Kisame's opinion was the most emotion displaying that he had noticed on his partner) and something that he murmured._

"_Kensei-dono..." Only that. _

_But things got even more confusing when the ever stoic man pick up something from the floor. It was then that Kisame noticed that "something" was actually "someone", a pink haired girl to be more precise. _

"_Kisame, we are going to take hr to Leader-sama. Let's go before ANBU arrive." at this point, Kisame was feelling like he had been teleported into the twilight zone. Too dumbfounded for anything else, the bijuu wihout tail only nodded before disappearing along side Itachi via shunshin._

_Exactly 43 seconds later, an ANBU squad showed up to investigated the crime escene._

_5 hours later, 4 minutes before Naruto arrival into Hyuuga Hinata's current cell, was the time when somedody noticed that Haruno Sakura was not anymore in Konoha._

_(End of flashback)_

When the girl woke up she didn't seem too upset that she was taken form her home. Itachi didn't comment anything, but Kisame was curious about her behavior and called her on it. Her answer didn't make any sense to Kisame: _"Because, at last, I'm free." _The sadistic smile on the little cutie face, along side a pair of unaturally golden yelowish eyes, made Kisame uneasy for a second and so so danmed wrong in so many levels in a little girl's face.

The Akatsuki pair, with their third wheel, were entering the general zone of one of their "merry group" hideouts all over the Elemental Nations. The girl was looking around as they stopped in front a huge rock that was resting in the rocky wall of a cliff. At both sides of the rock, A couple of steps in front of the rock was a red coloured _**torii**__, _making the impression of a leading entrace.

Itachi, being the unofficial leader of the group, steped forward until he was at mere inches from the refered rock, making some handsings that the pink haired girl couldn't see, but did could sense the building chakra, and placing his right hand with a ring on it on the rock. Sakura noticed that the ring flashed for a second. As soon as the kinslayer took out his hand from the rock, it began to move by itself, reaviling in the process the entrance of a cave. It was huge.

The genin only whistled in apreciation in a crearly faked-impressed face.

"Stay here." said Itachi after a while walking into the cave to Sakura.

Whithout waiting for a reply, the Uchiha make other handsings before stoping and waiting. For Sakura it felt like the man's chakra was off, like proyecting itself far away at some point to their west. If Sakura had payed attention to their trip she would said that the weird chakra-sending technique was going to the vicinities of Ame.

Sakura was musing over it, trying to find the purpouse of Itachi's actions when she felt another chakra signatura coming from the same direction as the early signal, but this one was massive, to say the least, and obviously different than Itachi's, meaning that was from somebody else.

The weirnesses of the day didn stopped. Literally out from thin air, and secreataly freaking out Sakura, appeared a man, or a silhoutte of a man... kind of. The best form to describe as like an spectral shadow. The man had a similar clothes with the same red clouds desing that the cloak that she was wearing and the one the blue man, Kisam if she recalled it correctly, displayed. None of the man traits were noticeble, except by an obvious spiky hair, that reminded her of Naruto, and the creepiest eyes that she had ever seen. They were grayish blue, in a circular ripling pattern and had this feeling that they could tear apart your soul with the most fleeting of glances.

The man looked at her, impassively and silently, for a grand total of two minutes without breaking eye contact. Sakura felt that it was a sort of test so she decided to play even. Ripling blue eyes stared into golden yellowish eyes. Intense golden strong willed eyes stared into full of dispair and ambition Rinnedgan eyes.

Somehow, after a while, Sakura knew that she had been aknowledged by someone powerfull with respect.

"Itachi, I understand. For now on, she will be your apprentice until we decide other wise. Bring her to our next meeting. Haruno Sakura, " the man started to talk breaking the staring contest first, speaking to the stoic man that had gave her his cloak and then to Sakura herself, "we are part of a group called Akatsuki and I'm its leader: Pain. I want to extend an invitation to join us."

"_How does he knows my name? Did Itachi-san told him somehow when he did that chakra-sending technoque? No, the whole process didn't last enough for it. Maybe he somehow sent mental information? Ino-chan did said once that things are faster in our minds, so is a posibility. Or maybe, maybe those creeping eyes are there for more than just show. And now the invite me to their group. I don't know how many people this organization has or what are their goals, but if Itachi, Kisame and this man are any indication of their strengh, then they aren't people that I want as enemies. Well, life is not worth of it if risks aren't taken."_

"I accept. But I will want to know more about it. And also..." this raised and eyebrow form Itachi-san, which Sakura ignored "I want to know more the sealing tecniques that were used in the creation of those rings." The pinknette finished to say while she pointed Itachi's hand where said ring was.

"So, you can read seals." Stated the shade of a man. "Very well, but for now, Itachi will be your mentor until our next meeting. Until then, your answers will be given."

And with that the man dissapered in the same fashion that he showed up in the first place.

* * *

><p><strong>Far away, in Amegakure no Sato.<strong>

"Interesting, Konnan." Said the man known as Pain while he oppened his eyes. He was sit down in his usual spot where he could watched the ever-falling rain bathing his homeland. Behind him was his only reminding friend, the Paper Maiden, Konnan. "Itachi knows the full extend of our plans, and he is willing to help us."

"Are you sure Nagato? How? Do you think that Madara told him?"

"Is a possibility, but I doubt it. _That_ man hardly departs from his secrets. But now, we have more chances of succedding, since Itachi brought us Haruno Kensei's legacy."

"Who? Why this is so important?"

The self-proclaimed god look at her friend for a moment before returning his gaze into the dark clouded skies.

"During the last days of the Firts Ninja War, a man called Haruno Kensei saved thousands of lifes in exchange of his own. A true shinobi work form the shadows, without being seen or felt. The greatest achievement of a shinobi is not inmortality, but to bee forgotten, to never been noticed, to never being know for being amongs us."

"Oficially, Haruno Kensei was a mere chuunin, but secretly, he was the uknown sensei of Hatake Sakumo, the White Fang, for a short time. One day, he just died in battle saving his comrades, or at least that is the official version. In true, Haruno Kensei, by means that are still uknown, made that the Nindaime Tsuchikage, Mu the Muji, and the Nindaime Mizukage kill each other, precipitating the end of the war. He survived, if barely, but _Salamander_ Hanzou, that was a hidden witness of all of it, feared that the man will become a treat to his ambitions and homeland after watching how he disposed of two of the most powerfull Kages ever known, so he poisoned him, killing him. Hanzo kept a record of it, and that's why I know all of this, while the rest of the world ignores it, ever since we raid Hanzo's lair." Explained Nagato to his second.

"I still dont understand why this is so important, despite the knowledge."

"Konnan, Haruno Kensei was more than a mere man and a shinobi." said Pain in a monotome, if amused, voice. "He was the direct descend of a ninja of old, a legend among legends in the ways os ninjutsu."

"Do you mean...?"

"Indeed, my angel. Haruno Kensei, as all members of the Haruno Clan are, the direct descend of the _Ultimate Ninja_: HATTORI HANZOU."

* * *

><p><strong>Uzumaki Shrine, Nami no Kuni.<strong>

"Father, mother, why? How are you alive?" Croaked the shaky voice of Uzumaki Naruto, not quite believing his eyes.

Infront of him were no others than Konoha Yellow Flash and Fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato, and the Red Death, Uzumaki Kushina, his parents, his until now deceased parents.

"My sochi, I'm so happy to see you." said the redhead starting to walk over her shocked son to give him a big motherly hug with all her love on it.

Sadly, the reunion wasn't as they expected. Naruto jumped backwards until he touched the wood door, kunais drawn in both his hands reading to slice anything that moves in the wrong way.

"Who really are you and why you were sealed in my stomach?" he was angry, but not for the reaons that many would think.

"I guess it has to be expected." said the Yondaime, stepping next to his wife to comfort her. SHe was shaking and silently crying becuase the reaction of their son.

And thus, taking turns, both of them told them about their lives, their memories, and how it come to past this second, if brief, chance for a reaunion.

Not even once Naruto relaxed his body and his face was devoid of any emotion while his so called parents poured out their hearts to him. It was breaking them inside, but they pressed forward nonetheless.

"_They are also construct of chakra, like Rimi."_ Rimi thought, while listening her new master and is parents.

Naruto on his part, listening both their tales, which were quite long, in disbelief. It was incredible, riddiculous even, byt anyone standards. But his amaze turned to something else, something deeper, something that he thought that had been suppressed. In a Yamanka had been inside Naruto's mind they would have marble at the speed that its emotional brain activity was cahnging at the moment. From sadness, to depression, to loneliness, to angry and finally to hate. He hate it, everything, his life, all. And at the moment, the main focus of his hate was infront of him, finishing the tale of their lifes.

For the outside world, he was the posterboy of calm, patiance and understanding. Inside was a whole different matter. Sooner, rather than later, the volcano would be in eruption. Minato and Kushina just finished what they wanted to say and wait for several minutes in silence Naruto's reaction. He was quiet. They started to get nervous, desesperate even, for him to say something, anything. Kushina was about to crack when Naruto decided to put them out of their misery, or so they thought.

"I must admit that as a leader of many people, you had my respect, doing what was necesery to protect those peole that you served." SOmehow they were relieved by his words, but that's whne their hopes were burned to the ground. "But I can't help it. I...HATE YOU!"

In an instant Naruto had crossed the distance that was between then and took both his parents by their necks, cutting the blood stream to their brains and pulling them up with unnatural demonic strenght. Both Minato and Kushina, not expecting to be attacked by their own son, didn't reacted on time, and when they tried, they found out that they couldn't move.

"_What is happening? We are suppouse to be intangible, mere constructs of chakra. How he is able to hold us like this? Son, please, stop." _Thought Minato while his wife had similar predicaments.

"_Sochi, please, stop." _She noticed that enraged teen's hans were covered by a mass of blue compressed chakra that were shaping like claws. _"This chakra claws, they feel like my chains. They are interfering with our chakra system negating them." _

The thing that both parents saw were thir son's eyes. They were expecting to see slitted pair of demonic crimson eyes, but in their place were deep blue eyes, frozen flames of cold fury on them. Hatred, it was the most accurated way to describe the emotions that filled those unholy set of eyes.

"You should have let me die with you that night, instead, you gave a life full of missery and torment. You cursed my existence, you danmed to a hell of solitude. So I will do you the same favour." His voice was oddly calm, even if pure hatred rolled of his voice in waves.

That's when something unforeseen happened. Huge, highly densed, waves of chakra started bumping out of Naruto chakra claws into both Minato and Kushina. At the same time, said parents started to feel the weirdest things of their whole life. They were filling that something was being pulled out of their souls, like a piece was being tear out of the fabric of their existance, while in the oher hand they felt like their body begin to feel heavier and heavier progressively. Seeing their confusion Naruto decided to enlight them.

"I'm solidifying my chakra to give you new bodies. At the same time, I'm taking out your chakra and ability to do ninjutsu and all your knowledge. Yes, I will be able to do everything that you can while you will be mere civilians. Maybe now you will see the damage that you have done."

Both Minato and Kushina wanted to say something but their body were not responding them. Naruto decided to speak for them a little more anyway.

"Soon you will be lost conciousness but before you do, I want to tell you tht both Uzumaki and Namikaze lines will end here and now. From now on I will be recognised as **Kishin no Naruto.** Thank you, my gratefullness is only outclassed by my hatred and goodbye; we will not see each other again."

And like that Minato's and Kushina's world blacked out.

When the process was finished, Naruto let their bodies down on the floor, next to each other before turning to Rimi, who had been quiet during the whole ordeal.

"So, I thought we had things to do."

"Right! Now is Rimi's time to work ^^."

**And the world would never bee the same again.**

**.**

**.**

**.**

And Cut!

I hope this answer some of your answers, becuase it raised a lot more. You will see what will happend with Sakura and the Namikazes in the next chapter.

For those that think that what Naruto did was impossible, to revived his parents, I will like to explain myself. In cannon, during the Pain invasion, we saw how Kyuubi, having taken six tails out to play, started to materialized its own body. A huge massed of condesed chakras pretty much constructed a body for itself. Now, NAruto has unholy ammounst of chakra, remember? And not only that, he recharges his chakra as soon as he uses it, giving technically unlimited chakra reserves.

And now you know how Naruto is able to use the Hiarishin, along side other awesome techniques that both the Fourth and Kushina knew.^^

By the way, **Kishin no Naruto** means **Maelstrom of the Dark God.**

DONT expect and update to soon since I will start taking my finals ofr the next couple of weeks so my time will be drastically reduced. I will update my other story, Forsaken: Forgotten, before disappearing son watch out for it.

R&R

pd: there is a pick of Sakura with the Akatsuki clothes on... you may like it^^


	6. A Toad in the middle of the Maelstrom

**Chapter 5: A Toad in the middle of the Maelstrom. The Gama Sennin is in your way, Naruto**

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><p><em>"Let the world know you are how you are, not as you think you should be." <em>Fannie Brice

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><p><strong>(Track- Hill<em> of Sorrow <em>by Hiroyuiki Sawano)**

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><p><em>"Why?" he asked. "Why her?"<em>

_"It's simple. She was with you." answered Danzou making look himself as a villian. If anything went wrong, the blond would be focused on him instead of Inoichi and Ibiki, both invaluable assets to Konoha forces._

_"As long as I have lived I had been shunned and abused, and after I knew why I understood it, and accepted, even if I didn't like it. I didn`t feel anger or hate toward any of you, only pity." he still had his gaze down upon Hinata, watching her soft and paused breathing. "But now," standing up, while everybody tensed, "you dared to touch my heart, my pride, my Hime..."_

_And it came. It was dificult to describe, to comprehend, to aknowledge. The closest thing to it was the Kyuubi, with its malice and nauseous KI. But this wasn't like it, no, it was thousands times worst. Kyuubi's KI was dispersed and feral, this one was focussed and morderous. The worst of it? They couldn't feel a once of youki, meaning that all this was Naruto's._

_The present shinobi received the blunt of it. Some of them, like Danzou and Inoichi where plastered on the floor, unable to move, feeling like something ridicously heavy was pressing them down... like a mountain. Others, like some Root agents, simply died from a heart attack or a stroke. They were not the only ones, becuase the WHOLE village feel the ungodly wrath of the jinchuuriki._

_It wasn't fear. Fear could be overcome, accepted, surpassed. No, what they felt was pure, unadulterated terror. For the firts time the village had recognized how much they had screw things up._

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><p>Ninjas, by general rule, didn't have a long life-span. It was because the nature of their work, full of danger and, ironically, emotional stress, along side their usual, more than dangerous, training. But now and then, exeptions of this rule came along. Oonoki of the Dragon Scale, the Sandaime Tsuchikage, was one of these exceptions, and the oldest, at least publicily, ninja alive, beating Sarutobi Hiruzen, Sandaime Hokage, by 3 years. Said Hokage was another exception, along side his prized disciples, the Legendary Sannin: the Toad Hermit, Jiraiya, the Slug Tamer, Senju Tsunade, and the Snake Handler, Orochimaru. Because the sheer fact of living, when thousands of shinobi died, the actual generatuion, even if some of them (Orochimaru) were villians, looked them with respect and aknowledgement.<p>

But, why all this? The reason is simple, if anylized closely. Deception is the most devasting tool that a ninja had and information was their second most powerful one. With a long life comes experience, with experience comes an invaluable ammount of information that helped these living legends to face everything, even the unknown, and emerge victorious. But at the moment, Sarutobi Hiruzen was kind at lost with his next course of action.

For all his power and skills, the old man couldn't move, for one. Other reason was the source of his actual paralisis: a royally pissed off jinchuuriki, Uzumaki Naruto. Speaking of the blond, the kid wasn't even moving, and for a moment Sarutobi wondered if the boy was at lost in some sort of trance or memory lane. In his hands, Naruto held the unconsious body of Hyuuga Hinata like a sleeping bride in the hands of her loving goom. It look cute in a sense, something that the old man thought, if unconsiously. In contrast of said tender moment, unholy ammouts of KI were rolling of the genin, and the ammount was rapidly increasing. With his awereness intact, Sarutobi noted that some of his ANBU agents, along side with some ROOT angents, were holding their ground, even if they also couldn't move, but he also noticed that many other ninjas, especially those on duty in the Hokage tower, had passed out.

It seemed like and eternity, but in true, only few seconds had passed. And, as it came, it dissapeared.

Sadly, it didn't mean good news for them. Out of nowhere, a blast of raging wind blew them out of the cell that they were in, along side a huge chunk of the wall and part of the roof. Only his years of experience saved the old Hokage of being crushed like a bug by elephant-sized debris. The ninjas also sustitued themselves with logs that were taken from somewhere (Bless The Log!).

"Ibiki, Inoichi! Take some ninjas with you and evacuate the Tower. The rest of you, come with me!"

"HAI, HOKAGE-SAMA!"

"Let's hunt down Uzumaki Naruto."

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><p>In the confussion, Naruto slipped away and managed to get out of the Hokage Tower under the cover of the dust cloud that his chakra pulse created. Using the almost not existence link between he and Hinata, allowed him to use the Fourth prized technique, the Hiarishin no Jutsu, to arrive next to her. But it was at great cost, not that he regretted it. Since his body wasn't acostume to the technique, copped with the fact that he covered a huge distance with said jutsu, he had drained 60% of the total of his chakra. Thanks to his former jinchuuriki condition, he had recovered up to a 72% roughly.<p>

Naruto knew that he had to get out of there, fast, and he wouldn't be able to use the Hiarishin again anytime soon. At the moment, the ammount of knowledge that he had taken from the Yondaime and his wife was humbling, and, useless, since a lot of them requiere certain conditions that he couldn't afford during his scape. It seemed that he needed to get out of there via shunshin, repeated several times, something that Uzumaki Namikaze Kushina had been practincing short before getting pregnant with him. Shaking his head, Naruto pulled himself out such thoughts before taking a direction.

Or he tried, and failed, because the God of the Shinobi, Sarutobi Hiruzen, was in front of him, while several ANBU units surrounded them, ready to strike at any moment notice.

"_It seems that I need to risk it again. Now I'm at a 78%. I can fight or I can scape, but I can't do both. I need to stall for more time." _"Why, old man? Why you harmed Hinata?" asked Naruto in a dead flat tone.

"She comitted several crimes, as you did." _"You are stalling for more time, I know you. I don't know how you learnt the Hiarishin, but is obvious that you are not who you portraited to be. The Kyuubi, perhaps? It is plausible, but my guts are telling otherwise. The team I sent to the Barrier Unit should have arrived already, and alert them to power up the barrier to the maximun level. I don't know if it is going to work against Minato's technique, but we need to stop them." _

"That's BS, and you know it." _"84%. It should be enough."_

"You are not helping you case, Naruto. Turn yourself, and maybe we can reach an agreement."

"Nice try. **Wind Art: Wind Barrier!**" A gust of wind surrounded Naruto and Hinata while a huge cloud of dust started to form around them.

"**Fire Art: Fire..." **But he was too late. A yellow flash that was visible through the dust cloud confirmed to them their fears. The gust of wind and the dust cloud started to disperse rapidly.

"Danmed it!" cursed a random ANBU while the others murmered similar, but not as kindly, phrases.

"Hey, what's that?" said another ANBU pointing to the alley below. In it, there was to people unconsious and stark naked. When some of them descended they noticed that one of them, the male, had spiky blond hair, which made them believe that somehow the jinchuuriki had messed up his scape if it hadn't been that the male was obviously older. Next to him was a beautiful woman with a figure that made some of the present drool and airburn red hair.

But nowbody was as surprised as Sarutobi Hiruzen, who recognised both persons inmediately from far. Why he shouldn't? Especially since he considered them like the grandchildren that he never had.

"Minato? Kushina?"

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><p>Several blocks ahead, near the northest gate; Naruto and a sleeping Hinata were heading out the village. The closest mark of the Hiarishin was several days of distance and it marked one of several hideouts that the Yondaime had scattered thorugh the Elemental Nations. If he didn't want to kill himself drying out his chakra, them he needed to reach Tamaki Town, at three days of travel (ninja speed) from Konoha, before attempting the use of the Hiarishin again. The Yondaime was a monster, Naruto recognized, if he could use such technique repeatly for long periods of time without breaking a sweat.<p>

With that in mind he used a double Shunshin and a Special Kawarimi that Kushina had created as a combo to suplement Minato's in battle and level the stacks with him during common spars. What he did was to create a dust screen and made the Leaf ninja believe that he used the Hiarishin. What really happened was that he made the long distance sustitution with his biological parents (that where still in the Uzumaki Shrine in Wave Country) and after it he made the double shunshin while burning his chakra to create a yellowish colour similar to the one create by the Fourth technique. It worked and he admitted to himself that Kushina was also a monster if she could come with techniques like that.

But somebody would ask, why did he leave the Yondaime and Kushina in the Leaf? The answer was: moral and emotional shock. At the moment, both of them were as useful as civilians but they would be confirmed as the Yondaime and his wife after some blood tests. In the mainwhile, the Leaf will be distracted enough to leave Naruto and Hinata scape while their trail got "cold". Also part of Naruto wanted to leave a message to the people that tormented him as long as he could remember.

With that in mind, the blond genin and his beloved on his arms run for their freedom.

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><p>"Did you hear that Tonton? We are almost there. Home, Tonton, and I know that you will like it." ranted happily Katou Shizune to the pig in her arms while in front of them walked her shishou, Senju Tsunade, and her teammate Jiraiya. They have been trivelling for the past week and now they were at two day of distance of her birth place. It had been too long.<p>

Tsunade and Jiraiya were actually putting the former up to date with recent information about the village's affaires.

"So, sensei hasn't retired yet."

"No, he hasn't. But I think that he will find sucesor soon, now that you are back."

"Jiraiya! If he is thinking to pin me that danmed hat I swear to all Kamis that I will go and never come back!"

"Dont worry Hime. I don't think that you are going to be the Gondaime. But you can be sure that you, maneging the medical program, will be one of his last actions as a Hokage."

"I see. Well, at least I'm happy that Shizune is getting into society again. I feared by her love live." said Tsunade, now calmer, looking back, with a sad gaze, to her aprentice who was chatting happily with Tonton. "She had sacrificied a lot for me, even when I have been like an ungrateful brat. At least now she will not be like a mother hen over me all the time."

"Well, if you want I..." but whatever he was about to say was cut short. His stance tensed while the worry on his face was growing. "This is not good."

Tsunade and Shizune, fearing an attack, posed themselves ready for any assualt against them. "Jiraiya, what is happening?"

"Dont worry. I can handle _it _myself, but I need to hurry. Hime, Shizune-san, please go ahead. I will meet with you shortly." and before both women could protest, Jiraiya disappear in a cloud of smoke.

"Danm that pervert!"

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><p>"<em>Whe are almost there Hime. Hang on for another six hours."<em> thought Naruto while stealing a glance to the beautiful girl in his arms. It worried him that she had only woken up twice to go to the bathroon before going back to sleep. Hinata had been sleeping for the most part in the last two days and it wasn't natural, but a quick scan told Naruto that she had been drained of almost all her chakra and was simply suffering from chakra exhaustion. Still, to suck out all Hinata's chakra, that was a par with his own, copped with the fact that it wasn't regenerating as fast as it should, was unnearving.

All of a sudden, a powerful chakra signature appeared out of nowhere in front of him.

Stopping dead in his tracks, Naruto recognized Jiraiya of the Sennin blocking his path.

"Hello, Naruto-kun."

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><p><strong>(Listen <em>"Battle in the Forgotten City" <em>by Kenichiro Fukui)**

Short after the Kyuubi's attack, Jiraiya had placed a special seal on the blond. With it, he could tell the exact location of the jinchuuriki, and it told him also if he was alive. In his mind, it compensates his aussence in the blond's life.

And now, for the firts time, he had sensed it out side the village, way to far. And he knew that a gennin like Naruto, especially Naruto, wasn't going to be send this far. Now with his godson in front of him, suspicion started to corrode him, especially with a unconcious girl in his arms.

"You are Jiraiya, the Gama Sennin."

"Maybe… maybe not. What a genin of the Leaf is doing this far from the village?"

"She is ill. I'm taking her to recieve special attention."

Jiraiya raised an eyebrow. His suspucions were turning worse.

"I know of somebody that is a total expert in the medical field. Now, all we need to to is take her back to Konoha and..."

"I'm sorry, but that can't be posible. It was in the Leaf, afterall, that she was harmed...godfather."

Jiraiya opened his eyes as soucer plates before moving from the place he was stading on with speed that shouldn't be posible for somebody of his age. A second later, three kunais with ignited explosive tags hit the floor, exploding on impact. Jiraiya, who was now on the branch of a nearby tree, was trying to find the blond but the amount of dust raised by the explosion imparied his vision, making his task more difficult.

Using a low power fuuton technique, the Sennin blew the dust cloud, only to discover that Naruto was gone. Cursing under his breath, the living legend started to track the kid down following his chakra signature.

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><p>"<em>Of all people, why him? Kuso!"<em>

Naruto was running as stealthly as posible while peggybacking Hinata, but he knew that all his chances of getting out without notice were practically zero.

"_I need to enter in Ghost Mode as soon as posible, but if I stay still I will be found." _It was one of the things that he and Hinata needed to correct. To become "invisible" they needed to burts their chakra and contract it in a split-second. It wa so fast that it was for all things and porpuse undetectable, yet an expert sensor could pick up the burts easily, and it wasn't any doubt in Naruto's mind that somebody as the Sennin had pretty advance sensing skills.

Sadly, his fears were confirmed, because all of a sudden he felt something hit his left side. The next thing he knew was he and Hinta being airburn in their way to collide with a nearby three. Thinking quickly, Naruto proceeded to Sustitued both of them, or he tried to. Out of nowhere, ninja whire tied him against the unconcious form of Hinata, who miracously, dan't wake up yet.

"Uzumaki Naruto, why the hurry? I'm pretty sure that we can discuss whatever is bothering you over a cup or two of sake." Jiraiya voice was unmistaken. The tone was playful, but there was a certain edge on his words. Stepping out of the shadows, the legendary Sannin look down the tied blond, who was lying on his stomach. Naruto threw him a dirty look. "Ara, ara... you don't need to look so pissed. I bet that you..." but whatever he was about to say was cut short when a cloud of smoke covered the prisoners just to reveal a couple of tied logs. _"Sustitution!" _murmured Jiraiya turning aroung to see three kunais heading his way. Dodging them without second thought he jumped out of the way and landed on a brach that was in a tree behind him. Steading himself, the Sennin saw the blond in front of him in a fighting stance. But something was wrong with what he was seeing.

"_Where is the chic? Wait!" _looking more closely, _"the sustituion logs are gone. WHy he moved them? To use them again? No. This is a forest so that doesn't make sense... Don't tell me..." _While his faces weren't showing any emotion, disbilief, amazement and the incontroble need to laugh bitterly were trying to overcome him. What he believe was a sustitution technique was in true a henge to look like they had scape. At some point before their encounter, the blond had casted a kage bushin (and he KNEW that the blond in front of him was a kage bushin), that thrwe the kunais to separate him from the logs while at the same time cut the ninja wire, effectively freeing them. Despite everything, a small smile appeared for a second on the Toad Hermit's face. _"Naruto, you really are Minato's and Kushina's son."_

Sadly, his duty was firts and foremost, and thus, he launched himself to stop the blond before it was too late.

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><p>"<em>Kuso, he destroyed the clone faster that I expected.<em>" It had been a sound plan, even when he had to improvise. Before Jiraiya had found him, he made several shadow clones to create false trails, while two of clones followed them in the shadows, as a safekeep; it payed off. When Jiraiya had captured him, one of the clones understood his message when hi transformed himself and Hinata to look like they had scape. And now, that clone was distroyed while the other one, having entered in Ghost Mode, tooked Hinata and run to a safe location.

15 seconds later, Jiraiya showed up in front of him.

"Let me congratulate you, koso. Not many people could pull me out a bluff like that."

"Maybe you are too old, Jiraiya-dono." _"Ghost Mode, activate!"_

In front of his eyes, Jiraiya saw how Naruto simply, for a lack of a better word, vanished in the thin air. Did he become invisible? Did he somehow teleported? And his musing was cut short when he felt how his right arm, forso and leg were being stabbed. Luckly for him, his reflexes were as sharp was ever and thus, he could get out of the way before further damage could be done, or so he thought, because as soon as he stopped moving he felt his back being pierced. Moving again, the Sannin suffered similar results and only his experienced let him save vital points of the invisible onslaught. Fed off with his current situation he decided to become more active.

"**Ninpou: Yari Hizou"** all of a sudden, the Sannin's spiky white haired grew up in a instant while white spikes started to grow from his mane. In a second, Jiraiya's body was covered by and unusual arnour of hair, but it didn't stop there. Without giving pause, the Sannin made some handseals under his armour before kicking the ground harder than necessary. "Doton**: Yomi Nouma**".

It was like a cheap horror movie. The grounp became a HUGE swamp, with green and blakc moss all over it, that started swallowing the whole forest like it was quicksand. Three meters away, Naruto's form, having lost the balance of good footing, shimmered in sight, giving Jiraiya a target to work on.

Ghost Mode was the ultimate ninja tool, Naruto told to himself, since it didn't just hide one's presence, but erase one's entire existence. Aura, smell, sound, chakra signature, anything was taken out and thus, it was like the user became a ghost, so to speak, hence the name. Still, and like the Sannin had proben, it didn't mean that the existance erasing was literally, but a matter of perception, becuase the moment that the lanscape was changed, the Lady Luck shifted her grace to the veteran.

Making few hand sings, Jiraiya launched hair needles to Naruto who, while manage to move out of the wayh, wasn't fast enough to avoid the mayor brunt of the attack. After all, this was the fastest technique that the Gama Sennin had. The pain, of course, didn't stop Naruto to launch his own barrage of semboms to the old man how didn't need to dodge since his Hair Amour was still effective.

But Jiraiya didn't stop there. Making other batch of handsings, a mud dragon raised from the chackra made swamp before, with a defeading roar, launched itself towards Naruto who, in a impressive show of reflexes obtained throught intense training, dodge as best as he could, taking some hits here and there. Not once the word "overkill" passed through Jiraiya's mind, who wanted some revenge exacted on the blond.

The Earth Style: Mud Dragon Blast Technique was one of his secret inventions, one that he created for the sole porpuse to use it alongs side the Earth Style: Swamp of the Underwold. It would have been a huge chakra consuming effort, but for him, the creator, it was nothing, coped with the fact that he had a lot more chakra than the normal elite jounin. Not only that, but the Mud Dragon was kind of self-sustained, since it fused itself with the Swamp, sharing the chakra of which was created. It meaned that, instead of during days, the swamp would only last five to seven minutes tops, but it will be relatively easy for him to cast it again if necessary.

Yeah, Jiraiya was pissed at the moment, and wanted to show this brat who was the boss.

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><p>Things were going from bad to worst for one Uzumaki Naruto. He knew that he could dodge forever, insane stamina aside, and defend for whatever the old legend was cooking ofr him.<p>

"_It seems that I will have to use __**it**__._" Sigh. _"I was hoping to get familiar with __**it **__firts, but it seems that a trial test is in order if I want to get out of here alive." _

To the masked horror of the Sannin, Naruto stopped abrutally and took out a kunai. With it, the blond slashed both his forearms, which started to bleed profusely.

Jiraiya, ready to stop his technique, before remembering that he couldn't thanks to its self-sustaining properties, canceled out his Hair Armour and started running in Naruto's direction, even knowing that he would not been in time.

"NARUTO! MOVE OUT THE WAY!"

But when the Mud Dragon was at a meter of distance from the blond, it suddenly crumbled in tiny little pieces.

Jiraiya, reacting on instinct, jumped out of the way even before he noticed what he was doing. It was them that he felt something warm running down his left side. He looked what it was and, to his horror, the Sannin saw that his left arm was missing leaving him bleeding at an alarming rate. Landing from his fall, Jiraiya looked toward Naruto who had his right hand extended in front of him, liek he was catching something. Then, Naruto's extended palm closed abruptlly in a punch. The next thing that Jiraiya knew was that he was falling and that he couldn't fell his legs.

"_What was that?" _Jiriaya thought, surprised of how calm he sounded. _"It was for a second but I could see something red floating above his arm. It looked like a whip of some sort. No, it was, whatever it was, floating __**from**__ his arm. Is that why he cut himself? Was that whip was made... of his blood?"_

"You really are up to your fame, Gama Sennin. As a show of respect, let me reveal you the name of the technique that defeated you. It was a new Gekken Genkai that I had recently acquired. It is called **Crimson Stigmata.**" He paused, reajusting his posture. Jiraiya couldn't be sure, but he was detecting tireness in the voice of the blond. It seemed that, whatever this Stigmata was, had drained him tremendously. The blond continue. "The chances of you surviving are slim. But if you manage to do so, please, relay this message to the world: Kishin no Naruto is your world ultimate's nightmare. Come after him, and Hell will be a welcome relief."

The tone was icing cold, stealing from Jiraiya the ability to say something. He couldn't say how long the blond had been gone, and the only thing that registred was his body was shivering, from shock thanks to the blood lost or the hate in his godson's voice, it was his best guess.

Feeling his eyes too heavy, they started to close, while slipping into unconsiousness. His last thoughts were the words od a dying man. _"Naruto, what happened to you?"_

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><p>He could hear voices around him. One of them was quite similar to his Hime's.<p>

"Oh Kami! Jiraiya, what happened to you?"... "So much blood, so much blood..."... "Shizune, come quickly, we are losing him..."... "... there is no other way..." … "DAMMED!"

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><p>That would have been the last time that somebody saw Uzumaki...no... Kishin no Naruto and Kishin no Hinata in years. Upon their returning, the world was going to be sumerged in the shadows of war.<p>

* * *

><p>Waking up, Hyuuga Hinata felt like she had been sleeping for years. She tried to open her eyes, but rembered what had happened after her capture. WIth extreme effort, since her arm was stiff because of being without use for so long, Hinta touched a bandage on her face that was covering her eyes.<p>

"It is good to see you waken up, Hime." Said the voice of Naruto, who had just entered the room where they were in.

"Na... we...r...ty..." Hinata tied to speak, but her throat was too dried. Thankfully, Naruto understood her needs, because the next thing she knew was a gently arm behind her neck in support while a cup of fresh water was touching her lips.

After sipping the icy liquid that was caresing her throught, Hinata could speak, if grogilly.

"Naruto-kun... where are we?"

"We are far from Konoha. I'm happy to see you awake. I was feering that you would keep sleeping for the rest of your life."

"What happened to me?"

"Extreme chakra exhaustion. And for you firts question, it is a long story. But we have a long trip ahead of us, so I can update you on the way. Please rest, as soon as you recover enough, we are going to part."

"Where are we going, and why?"

"We are going to get you eyes back, Hime. And to where... Do you fancy to pay a visit to the Great Meister?"

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And Cut!

Yeas, I'm alive. Sorry for my dissapearence. These chapter was done ofr two weeks ago, but I didn't liked how it turned out, so I rewritted it like 5 times (I'm not joking, I truly wrote these 4 or 5 times). I wanted to make something epic betwwen Jiriaya and Naruto, but it is not posible without BSing greatly with some godlike techniques (don't worry, those are going to come, but not now.). I'm still not happy, but it was the best I could come without compromising the quality of the plotline.

So, what do you think of Naruto's, quite litterally, bloodline? Yeah, part of the reason behing the title of this sequel, the other part will be shown in a chapter or two. I know that some of you were expecting something like a dojutsu godlike power (coughsharingancough), but I wanted to do something else. Crimson Stigmata is based on the Branchs of Sin of Deadman Wonderland (great anime, excellent manga) and Third Fang's Crypt's blood bending skills.

Is not orginal per se, but I hope it gives me a great deal of potential to use on my own unique ways.

About Jiraiya, don't worry, he isn't dead, and the reason behind his defeat was becuase he was taken by surprise and in the Ninja World, surprise was deadly. It is a testament to his skill that he is still alive... Now, the damage he was dealed with is another matter though.

Next chapter is going to cover the aftermath in Konoha and thr Oto invasion (yes, it is going to happen, but I can tell you that the results will be REALLY different) and maybe what had happened with Sakura...

Liked it? Hated it? R&R


	7. Shinobi Warfare

**Chapter 6: Shinobi Warfare. The conflicts that plague you world, Naruto.**

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><p>"<em>You don't see to get it: once war breaks through, both sides are wrong."<em> - Bleach -

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><p><em>Dammed it!<em> Mentally yelled the _Shinobi no Kami_, while he struggled with his ultimate enemy: paperwork. Truthfully, his face only showed a perpetual frown while he finished reading the paper that was currently in his hand, stamped accordingly and continued with the next pile.

Sarutobi Hiruzen would have burned down the piles of documents on his desk long time ago if not for their importance.

Two weeks ago, Uzumaki Naruto did the impossible, escaping with an unconscious and blinded Hyuuga Hinata on his arms. Not only that, but also dropped his long-thought-dead-parents on them…literally, while covering all his tracks. Of course, Hiruzen himself didn't believed that somehow Minato and Kushina were alive, albeit with civilian chakra levels and all their shinobi related knowledge sealed, or stole somehow, but all the texts that they conducted confirmed the miracle. The old Sarutobi would admit later on that, if until those were their problems, he would resign himself to solve them, but it was not the case.

When Naruto teleported himself with young Hinata, he didn't escaped empty-handed, not, the brat took all the money, properties and anything inherited from the Namikaze and Uzumaki clans (later they would learn that anything in that category was sucked in a pocket dimension which only could be accessed through a hidden seal under the spiral seal that Naruto had on his navel).

62% of Konoha liquid access, alongside the Namikaze states, and 22% of the Land of Fire budget suddenly vanished. It wasn't a pretty affair when their Daimyo showed on their doorsteps, royally pissed and with his mind set on disbanding the Leaf to compensate for his Lands loses. Of course Sarutobi, having more than half a decade dealing with the political world, convinced him that it would be a really BAD idea while making look to said Daimyo that it was his _infinite _wisdom that realized that disbanding the Leaf was not in his best interests or of his people.

Danzou, silently watching his hated friend working his magic on the politician bowed his head in respect, being reminded why exactly Sarutobi Hiruzen was feared by the the shinobi world as a whole... and his battle skills were just a bonus in the why.

But misfortune never comes alone.

Konoha's almost unbreakable walls were secretly reinforced since their construction by a complicated multi-layered seal array that was created and applied by the Uzumaki Clan when they were still around. Said seals were in a level that only Minato or Jiraiya could hope to match. Say seals disappeared when certain jinchuuriki did a runner. Now the village was unbearably exposed and underprotected.

On the at the end of the second day since Naruto's departure, Senju Tsunade and her apprentice, Katou Shizune, came back to the village. This of course would have been an occasion for celebration, but, sadly, it was not to be. With them, also came a seriously injured Jiraiya.

Sarutobi was totally certain that, if Tsunade wasn't around, Jiraiya would have been dead already. He was saved, but the cost was as high.

* * *

><p><em>He could hear voices around him. One of them was quite similar to his Hime's.<em>

_"Oh Kami! Jiraiya, what happened to you?"... "So much blood, so much blood..."... "Shizune, come quickly, we are losing him..."... "... there is no other way..." … "DAMMED!"_

That memory again. The last thing that he remembered after his confrontation with his godson. For the last two weeks, half of which he had been unconscious under medical induced coma, that memory had tormented him time and time again.

But the living nightmare got only worse when his deceased student and his wife showed up to pay him a visit... it wasn't pleasant.

(Flashback)

"_WHERE WERE YOU? All this time...WHAT WERE YOU DOING INSTEAD OF BEING WITH HIM WHEN HE NEEDED SOMEBODY AT HIS SIDE?" A pissed Kushina, a never good thing, added the fact that she was a pissed mother, was screaming at him while Minato was holding her back before she did something that she may regret later on. Still, Minato's impassive gaze told volumes of the blond's inner rage toward the Sannin._

"_Do you know how we felt, watching him going against everybody just for the sake of living? What we felt from his emotions? What we saw in his dreams and nightmares? DO YOU, BASTARD? WE TRUSTED YOU WITH HIS CARE AND WELLBEING! WE TRUSTED YOU AND YOU DID NOTHING! For what? So you could peep on woman so you could write porn?"_

_For some reason, Jiraiya's lack of answers and continuously silence irritated the redhead, and the blond, even more._

_And what could have been said? That he chose, like them, protect their home instead of their own family? That it was his efforts, and only his alones, that prevent over 750 assassination attempts to anyone related to the fourth in any given shape or form in the aftermath of the Kyuubi's attack? Or maybe he could have said that he trusted his sensei enough to take his responsibilities as a godfather until he was available? Or maybe the fact that, take him with him in his travels would have been even more dangerous than leaving him at his birthplace? They were many things that could have been said, but Jiraiya didn't voiced any of them, because no matter with how many excuses he could come with, it wasn't going to be good enough._

_Minato stay silent the whole time. Not once he said something or pointed at him in angered disbelief. _

_When both parents march with his silent _"I'm sorry" _Jiraiya was looking through the window at his right. After a couple of minutes he turned to face on the room's corners._

"_You can get out now Tsunade. I thought that I was the peeper and spy of the team."_

"_All what they said was the truth and you know it, and yet, we also know that whatever reason you had to not fulfill your duties as a godfather had to be great and dangerous." said the last Senju while stepping out the shadows with a white coat over her usual kimono._

_Jiraiya only gave her a sad, small smile before returning his gaze to the window._

"_Jiraiya, I now is not the best of times, but I think that you should know... Jiraiya, you..."_

"_I will never be a ninja again...I know." Sensing, without turning his gaze from the window, he decided to explain. "I guessed... in a sense. I feel that my body barely had chakra on it, and I will never be able to mold chakra again."_

_He never saw it, but Tsunade nodded while few tear drops escaped her eyes._

(End of flashback)

And now, everything that he had worked for was gone.

Whatever Naruto did to him, not only cut off his left arm and legs, but also corroded his blood, which started a high speed necrosis process.

Tsunade, being the legendary medic that she was, utilized one of her only five medical fuuinjutsu to, not only attach back his limbs, but also turn back his blood to normal. Everything at the cost of his entire chakra network.

Of the 512 tenketsu on the human chakra system, only 4 could be saved, alongside his Eight Gates. He would be able to live a normal life, but he would not be able to use chakra in any shape or form again.

Jiraiya was never a talented man in almost any area. He had reached his station as one of the most dangerous man alive with sheer willpower and perseverance. Being a failure in almost anything, he was accustomed to take impossible odds and overcome then. It was part of him, it was what make him the Toad Sage. And all that had drawn down south.

"_Was _everything_ worth of it?"_

Only time would tell.

* * *

><p>Senju Tsunade gulped another bottle of sake with passion. The 13th bottle. While her blood stream was filled with the alcohol (which was burned by her chakra automatically, a trick that she had developed herself in her early days and was now something ingrained in her like a bad habit) she questioned the sanity in her decision to come back to the place that had taken everything that she cared about from her. It didn't make sense.<p>

Of course, she rationalized it into the fact that she did it because the life of her teammate, her nakama, was in danger. But she knew that, somehow, it wasn't the only reason, and THAT scared her. _"If the decaying health of the last remnant of my heart isn't enough, then, what is?"_

Her teammate.

Tsunade, being the person that she was, granddaughter of one of the most powerful man to ever exist, was talented since youth in the ninja arts. Orochimaru, and orphan, was, for the lack of better word, a prodigy. But Jiraiya... the white haired kid had always being a clown, a joke, as a man and a ninja. To her young mind, his ninja future was hopeless and futile; she even had a crush on her other teammate during those days under their sensei while she always discouraged the annoying Jiraiya's attempts to impress her.

And before she knew it, he surpassed her, and reached the "prodigy" in terms of power and skill. All with hard work and a stubborn perseverance that bordered the idiocy. The times that he was pulled down by others, herself included, didn't matter to him. The mocking, the discouraging whispers and remarks not even faced him, or said in other worlds, motivated him to push harder.

And Tsunade, in order to save his life, had taken away all that.

She didn't knew how to feel, maybe thanks to the constant alcohol in her blood stream or her emotional dullness, but somehow, she knew that something in Jiraiya's heart had died when she confirmed his fears. There had been only one occasion when she saw that brief emotion on the always jovial old man, and it was decades ago, when he had asked her hand in marriage. She had all flatly refused, thinking that it was a prank of some sort. But later she knew better. The look in his eyes, that last less than a 'split-second', was replaced instantly by his jovial, carefree attitude.

After that, he never asked her on a date ever again, and while he always stayed faithful at her side, being the best friend, teammate and support that one could ask for (baring his newly pervert side moments) she knew that something had died, a glint, in his eyes.

Tsunade, not wanting to deal with more emotional pain, took her 14th bottle of sake and gulped it down as she had been doing so far. It was a matter of time before Shizune finds her and takes away her precious alcohol.

* * *

><p>Akaimichi Chouji wondered, and not for the last time, if had broken permanently his pain threshold while laying in the floor, panting and sweating heavily, while catch his breath.<p>

"_Dad, I cannot stand it anymore. She is missing and nobody is doing nothing... I'm tired of being week... what can I do..."_

Ever since Sakura's kidnapping (it have been confirmed that somebody had taken her) Chouji had been restless. Feeling useless, he had implore his dad to train him into the ground, something that Chouza accepted, albeit reluctantly. But no matter how much Chouji's face kissed the ground, the chubby boy stood up, begging for more.

Maybe Chouza saw more than reckless abandon in his son's eyes, but he came to a decision that would change, not only his son or their clan, but Konoha's at large in the future.

"_Tell me Chouji, have you heard about the **Forbidden Dragonfly Style**? No? Well, it is not surprising, since is something that is only known by a handful of people at any given moment. You see, this style, opposed to our current **Butterfly Style**, is..."_

A secondary branch of techniques, not a higher level of them, but a whole unique set of abilities. Chouji could not believe it them, and even now was hard to accept. Their clan ultimate kinjutsu.

"_I'm giving you the chance now to decline, my son, because once that you start this training, you will not be able to stop until you finished or you die. Only four persons, in the four hundred years of existence, had survived it... the rest died painfully."_

His mother, of course, had rejected the idea from the start, desperately trying to convince her son and husband that said training was pure madness, something that should have been eradicated from existence. But Chouji had taken his decision. He wanted to find Sakura, to protected, to let her know what he felt.

The not so chubby kid was underground, somewhere under the Akaimichi Clan Compounds, in a really big basement. If Chouji was correct in his measures, the basement was the size, both in height and width, of the Ninja Academy. It was bare, and had a kitchen with enough supplies to feed an Akaimichi family of seven for three years. It also had a nice bathroom with hot water if needed. The floors, the ceiling and the walls, all of them up to the last square centimetre, were covered in sealing arrays. And all of them had and specific purpose. One to maintain the air clean and fresh, one for the temperature. Other were more obscure, like containment, chakra nullification, gravity amplification, even total insolation from the outside, etc.

It was said among those that knew of it existence that it could contain the full attack of the upper 4 of the bijuus without suffering an scratch, though it had been never tested. But at the moment, the arrays served to training purposes.

The first stage of the Dragonfly Style required that the user burn all the fatness in the body, leaving behind only muscles. They were two types of muscles: for resistance (white muscles) and for strength (red muscles). The idea was to create a body of "pink muscles", hardened by constant training. This would have take years, even decades of constant training, but thanks to the seals in the basement, this could be achieved in not even a tenth of the required time under normal circumstances. Any other person trying this would have died because the stress and pressure on the body, but the Akaimichi clan had, not a full fledged bloodline, shared traits inherited and developed thanks to their bodies' expansion and contraction techniques that helped them survived this. Even then, not many survived it anyway, but Chouji had an advantage over many of his kinsmen: he was the son of Akaimichi Chouza, leader of the clan, thus having a studier body; also, he was willing to forfeit his life if necessary.

After the first stage was done for (in another two weeks, if Chouji's math was right), he could go out of the basement for three days to let his body get accustomed to normal gravity and air resistance. After it, he could start stage two...

Not wanting to think way ahead of himself, Chouji picked the only scroll that his dad gave him to train. It was a special scroll that showed his content when certain requirements were fulfilled. Chouji didn't understood seals at all, but he knew that in his hands was a rare and advance piece of fuuinjutsu work. The scroll was created by the third Clan Head a little more than 3 hundreds years in the past. Each time Chouji fulfilled a stage, the scroll would show new material to master. At the moment, it only showed a set of training drills and eight sets of katas to help him refine his body.

_The Dragonfly Effect_

_by_

_Akaimichi Chozen_

_-DEVA: Revelation of the Body-_

_The human body..._

Immersed in the scroll, Akaimichi Chouji didn't knew that, in two weeks time, when he finish the first stage and go out to rest for a couple of days, his world, his village, would have changed... and not in the metaphorical sense.

* * *

><p>Uzumaki Namikaze Kushina was mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted, and, being from the clan that she was, it was saying something. Her husband was even more wasted. Poor Minato hadn't stopped to blaming himself for Naruto's childhood, and deep down, neither hadn't she. They had put their duties, their village, before their own family, their son. It had been a mistake, and now, not only them, but their village as a whole were suffering the consequences.<p>

She sigh. Their conversation with the Sandaime that they had in the morning. Admittedly, it could have been gone worse, and she could had handled it better, but what was done, was done. Once the angry yelling started... well, things got ugly.

"_What do you expected me to do? I'm old and tired, I should have retired long ago or die in the battlefield, yet, I'm asked to take the hat again... I have many regrets, and I'm sorry that it ended in this mess..."_

"_What did you to help him?"_

"_I activated AP-N...and... Phantom Code..."_

Kushina, at the time didn't knew what those names meant, but her husband did, if his look of horror was any indication.

It was simple, and yet terrorific shinobi protocol that made her shudder.

First, they used Naruto as bait to those ninjas and civilians that didn't obeyed their Hokage just to chase and torture an innocent kid. The ANBU, Root agents on their majority, made it _look_ like they had killed the transgressors of the Third's Law, while, in true, they were captured. Nobody would question the dead of fools that mobbed against a little boy after all; they took them to Danzou's training hidden camps and implemented AP-N, the _after long term infiltration mission protocol,_ to brainwash them in perfect shinobi, with all their memories destroyed, having new one crafted to their leader needs, and drill them to the ground with an inhuman training.

A nobody group. A whole battalion of soldiers. The _**Kao no nai chikara**_(Faceless Forces).

Sarutobi only did what he was supposed to do as the leader of the village: weed out the bad leaves and strength the village as a whole, without letting the spies within to notice. Like a true shinobi, working in the darkness, underneath of the underneath, hiding the true with deception that hid another bigger true with another deception with lesser trues.

Because that was how their cold, hard world worked. A world that they were part of, a world that they helped build.

Kushina could only cry her eyes out again. Nothing they have done, all their achievements, so far was worth the failure in their own house, their own family.

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><p>"I wonder how much did you drink this time, Tsunade-taichou." murmured Shizune while she adjusted a piggyback-carried Sennin, while they travel through the mace of roofs that Konoha had to offer.<p>

The night had fallen not while ago, and the new moon night sky, full of the starlight, offered a pale illumination to her steps. She was a kunoichi, that shadows were her element.

This was a common occurrence between her and her master, specially in hard dates like Nawaki's or Dan's death anniversaries. She knew that coming back to her home town would bring bad memories, but Jiraiya's condition, alongside the rebirth of the Fourth and his wife, and the disappearance of the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki just made matter worst.

Sigh.

"It seems that, not matter what, I never catch a break." murmured half joking the jounin. "At least it could be worst."

Famous last words.

A bright light to her left, followed by a deafening boom caught her attention, as well as other mini flashes all around the village.

"_Explosions!"_

As cue, other big explosions illuminated the night like a _in crescendo _melody in a symphony. All of a sudden, the earth trembled, and Shizune could hear how a huge chunk of the protective wall was ripped apart. Her unvoiced question of how was it possible was answered by a high pitched voice full of evil and insanity.

"**Yeah baby, I'm finally free and with a whole village to slaughter!"**

"Oh my Ka..." Shizune could only say in awe and fear. Even in the darkness of the night, her trained eyes could see the horror of tribal markings in a sandy brown skin. It was at least two times as tall as the Hokage tower, really big at the sides and ferocious looking. Its spiky tail waving around, smashing everything in its path while mini explosions were blazing at its feet.

The Ichibi no Shukaku had appeared out of nowhere and it was in warpath.

Shizune could not reveal in the fact, because, at the same moment, a rain of deadly looking sharp kunais fell from above.

* * *

><p><strong>Near Nami no Kuni.<strong>

"Kisame, are you sure about these? **Is this worth the hassle?**"

"Of course it is, if not, Leader-sama would had not suggested that we retrieve _that_ sword. And it had also been a childhood dream of mine to test myself against _it._ Actually, every single swordsman in Kiri dreamed with the same thing."

"**I'll never understand all this trouble for a sword. **You sure have weird fetishes."

Hoshigaki Kisame, the Monster of the Mist, and Zetsu of Akatsuki, were at the moment a few minutes of distance from Wave Country, close the recently finished Tazuna Bridge, hidden in a unnatural, thick mist.

Kisame was barely containing his excitement, because the sword of the _Red Death_ had showed itself somehow after decades of silence. As a swordsman, Kisame wanted to test his beloved Samehada against such a weapon, and at the same time, retrieve it from the newly found user. The Leader didn't want such a dangerous sword to fall in the wrong hands, it could damage their global domination plans if not treated carefully. It was a shame that he could not fight against the previous owner, _Red Death_, who was rumoured to be a swordsman in his own league. Oh well, this will have to do...

Suddenly, both S ranked criminal stopped. They had arrived to the famous bridge, but they couldn't see anybody passing by, which was strange considering that it had become a one of the most used commercial roads in the last couple of weeks. But it wasn't the lack of people that make them stop, nor the graveyard like silence that echoed through the thick mist.

It was the prone figure of a woman in front of the massive bridge at her back that was standing with her arms crossed over her impressive chest. The woman was wearing a deep red _kimono _with black flowers and vines as decoration. The _obi_ around her waist had a mixture of pure red and black flames design on it. Her long black hair was moved by the soft morning breeze, while the two red pangs of her adorned both upper sides of her beautiful face. Her eyes were cold as steel, and it looked like her blood was fire while her heart of made of crystal.

In Kisame's mind, this woman was not a pushover. Any sane person would have tremble or feel at least some apprehension. Kisame just grinned in excitement. Zetsu, being the rational-bipolar person-plant that he was, decided to move to a safe, far away, distance to see the upcoming match between masters of the sword.

Because there wasn't any doubt in all the presents' minds, that anything less than a clash of blades was unacceptable.

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**AN: **And Cut! Holy... it took me awhile to finish this chapter, and not because writer's block, it was the opposite, but because so many ideas came to mind that I could barely keep my wits on it.

Oh yeah, old Orochibob decided to speed up his global domination/Konoha destruction schedule (who saw it coming, especially with an insane Shukaku Grand Introduction included? ^^). I also paired little old Tsunami against Kisame, how can I be so cruel? Some may ask, but let me tell you that it was something that I have been planning even before start writing this story. Speaking of which, do any of you remember the old AP-N? I mentioned it on chap.7 in the Abyss part, so some of you may want to reread it, just in case. For you to know, everything I said or mention, no matter how small, WILL come back later.

I also hinted something with Chouji that will be a major part in the final chapters. Also, I like Chouji, and I want him to have his limelight in coming chapters, not immediately of course, but soon.

Now, with the bad news.

Will enter college on august, so I will take my admission exams in a month. I need to study, badly, and thus I will have little to none time to write. And even when I start classes, I will have some time before adapting to my new lifestyle schedule (I'm both dreading and getting excited all over it). In the next 15 days or so I will publish another chapter of Forsaken/Forgotten and Broken Circle, before going virtually inactive (I may pop in once in awhile to read on my favorite fics, specially you, devil, because I'm way too addicted to your awesome stories to stop.)

Don't worry, I will continue writing, not as much as before though, with promises of grand scale action in the next couple of chapters.

readya soon, ne/

R&R


	8. The Arts of Shinobi War

**Chapter 7: The Arts of Shinobi War. What is lurking and hiding beneath the shadows, Naruto.**

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><p><em>"War does not determine who is right, only who is left." <em>-Bertrand Russell-

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><p><strong>Hyuuga Compounds<strong>

"Everything is ready, Neji-sama. Teams 1 to 12 are stalling the invaders in their designated post, the rest is in standby waiting for your orders." Finished his reports Hyuuga Henna, knelt behind a meditative Neji.

**Fukoi Byakugan: Kuraun **was completed, and now all the Hyuuga clan was under Hinata's banner. The clan, as a whole, were preparing everything for their incarnated goddess eventual returning, and thus, Neji was in charge of the clan until her advent. Hiashi, bowing next to him, was the public face of the clan, but actually was a puppet in the grand scheme of things. Neither Neji nor Hiashi nor the rest of the Hyuuga clan noticed this, because for them, it was only natural to follow Hinata-dono's orders down to the T.

"Understood. Hiashi-sama, you know what to do. Civilians take priority, but take down as many enemies as possible with the least of casualties. Teams 13 to 22 will go out, while the rest will stay at the compounds defending it and waiting just in case they are needed as backup. I will, help with the evacuation only Phase Three is issued. Team Zero, continued with your special task."

Team Zero was essential know more than ever because they would continue to draw the seals for a grand scale _Kuraun_ around Konoha without anybody noticing it, using the current chaos as cover. Hopefully all the work would be finished before her greatness' return.

As a whole, the 90 odd Hyuuga knelt behind Neji, Hiashi and Henna, raised as one and disappeared shinobi style to their designated posts. It was time to show of what the new Military Police Force of the Leaf was capable of.

* * *

><p>"There are nicer ways to wake up a lady." Though Tsunade as she killed with ridiculously easy the last of a group of ten invaders that had spotted them.<p>

Not too far away, Shizune finished healing the last of her injuries produced by the rain of kunais that fall upon them. Her disciple had taken the brunt of the attack while protecting her drunken arse, but had managed to skillfully avoid vital areas. The kunais seemed to be coated with some kind of poison though, because it took the younger girl to heal her wounds a tad too slow. Tsunade do her hardest to ignore the pain of guilt that she felt.

"We need to get to the hospital, and fast."

"Hai, Tsunade-taicho! But what about Sandaime-sama? He's battling the Shukakku on his own."

"Don't worry about sensei, he can fend for himself pretty well. Let's worry about those that can't defend themselves first." _"Danm Jiraiya, we need you right now."_

* * *

><p>"<em>These Leaf scums are tough. No wonder that they are considered as the strongest among the great five nations." <em>Said a man with an uncertain amount of strings going out of his hand. His right cheek and his uncovered arms were covered in old scars that looked really painful. It was no wonder how this man, this jounin commander of Otogakure, despite his young age, was known as Kizuato.

Kizuato was one of a kind. During the raids to other minor countries that Orochimaru had ordered as a test field for his ninja, the young man had done remarkable well. His hard work and seriousness had launched him to the upper ranks incredible fast. But what it was unique about him was how loved he was by his comrades. At first it wasn't like that, but the man had the characteristic of never leaving a man behind. He always did his best to win with the less casualties among the Sound ranks. And not only that, it was his devotion to their Otokage caused that had earned him the respect of his peers. He always obtained the better results, even against the odds, when he was outnumbered and outmatched, charging forward, conquering obstacles in the Hebi Sannin's name, even when his superiors decided to retreat.

This, of course, had been noticed by the Hebi. Kizuato could only remember the conversation that he had with his leader, and the man that he admired the most, before coming to ensure the end of Konoha.

(Flashback)

"_Remember Kizuato, they will fight, kill and die for me. But you, whom had earned their respect, they will fight _with_ you, they will follow you while you lead them to victory."_

"_My lord... I don't know what to say, I..._"

(End of flashback)

"_I will not disappoint my Lord's expectations." _"Ready to strike? Take _Kuresshendo _Formation."

"HAI!" Twelve otonin yelled in unison at his back.

As one, they charge against the next ANBU platoon that they found.

* * *

><p>"Kuso!" yelled Namikaze Minato while he, along side Jiraiya, his sensei, and Kushina, his wife, fought back as best as they could the invaders that approached the hospital. Even without their techniques and chakra, they could still fight and cut with weapons. Still, they would not last long if more that two otonin appeared at once, like they had been doing so far, something that seemed odd to the resurrected Yondaime.<p>

"It is strange, they should be more nins in a onslaught against the hospital." Jiraiya voiced the trio concern.

"Maybe, that is my fault." asked a voiced behind them.

"Hime!" "Tsunade-sama!"

"I dispatched at least 20 of Oto's forces in my way here, but some slipped away."

"Hime, where is Shizune?"

"She is helping the evacuation. The hospital is the last before we can enter Phase Three."

"I see. We need to go where Sarutobi-sensei..."

"Wait there- gecko. I have a message for Jiraiya-sama- gecko." said a little blue toad with a green vest from a nearby branch, before hopping with a graceful land in front of them. Opening his mouth, the little thought pulled out his mouth a sealed scroll that was wider and longer than the toad himself.

"Oh, Gamageru, something important for me?" asked Jiraiya in a jovial tone, while frowning at the same time. When he opened the scroll, his smile couldn't banish quickly enough. "Crap! We had to hurry and find Sarutobi-sensei ASAP!" And without waiting the Gama Sannin started to run as fast as he could.

Tsunade, without pausing a second, summoned two little slugs. Speaking to one she said. "Find Shizune and tell her speed up the evacuation. We will be in contact through Katsuyu." Taking the other one and putting it in her shoulder before following the old pervert.

She didn't knew what Jiraiya had read in that scroll that had him so worked out, but she knew that ,whatever it was, had to be bad. Really, really bad.

Minato and Kushina stared for a second before chasing the blond Sannin.

* * *

><p>"<em><strong>Stay still, you hairless monkey, so I can taste your blood!<strong>_**" **Cried the Shukaku while sending another wave of sand to Sarutobi Hiruzen in his battle gi, the Monkey King Emma, in his Adamantine Staff Form, swirling in his hand as gracefully and easily as a dance-performer of Hot Spring Country, which was incredibly considering that say staff was as long as the Shukaku itself and as wide as one of the insane bijuu's arm at the moment.

The old Hokage avoided the onslaught like it was nothing, before shrinking the staff to normal levels and putting it behind his back. In lest of the blink of an eye later, the poisonous _Kusanagi no Tsurugi_ impacted its blade against the legendary staff with clear purpose of cutting something. It failed, to the eternal annoyance of it's wielder.

"Ku ku ku, Sensei, you should have retired long time ago."

"I will, after finishing you, you my biggest regret." A wall of fire separated them before enclosing around Orochimaru, trapping him, reducing everything to ashes. A lesser ninja would have died with something like that, but his sneaky student wasn't a normal ninja, heck, he wasn't a normal human being.

Sadly, he was correct.

From the ground beneath him, a huge purple snake with horns emerged, mouth wide opened, with the mission to eat the _Shinobi no Kami_.

"Ku ku ku, you're being too hasty sensei. I thought that you have missed me after all these years."

Manda was almost at his range. His body tensed when he felt a huge ball of compressed, and highly destructive, air, courtesy of the Shukaku.

"_One more second, wait for it. Wait for it... THERE!"_

Where a moment ago had been the old Sandaime, now stood Orochimaru totally disoriented, recovered fast, but it wasn't fast enough because Shukaku's _Daitoppa_ impacted him and Manda, who went crashing against a reminding part of the defensive wall.

Without pause, another two balls of air followed by a wave of sand came the Hokage's way. Having an idea, the old man did two handsigns, substituting himself again with Orochimaru AND Manda, putting them in the path of the incoming combo of attacks. Putting himself behind said attacks, he sent a Fireball to the air one, which combined itself with it, becoming a huge fireball that speeded up toward it's targets.

A mud wall put itself between the traitor, his summon and the attack. At the collision, a huge explosion engulfed the area. It seemed that the fireball wasn't exactly normal. Sarutobi smirked.

When the cloud of dust and smoke cleared, Manda was nowhere to be seem and Orochimaru was badly injured, burned in some places and wounded in others. His hateful glare conveyed all his loathe and hate against his former sensei.

"Don't tell me that you are already tired, boy. You should feel ashame of yourself, lasting less that this set of old bones."

"Oh, Sensei, you don't have a clue of how far I have reached. I have achieved powers beyond human comprehension. Ku ku ku, let me show you, Sensei, how futile your struggles are." And to the Sandaime's horror, Orochimaru's mouth opened abnormally to throw out a body covered in slimy juices. It was the Hebi Sannin completely uninjured. "You see Sensei, no matter what, no matter what you do, it will be for naught."

"You..." He was angry, that was clear. But his anger stepped down and only resignation and, later, resolution showed in his body language. "Even now I had the hoped that you would change, to see the error of your ways. No more, Orochimaru, my precious student is dead henceforth."

"You can try Sensei, you can try."

* * *

><p>"Thirty- four, thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven... YOSH! KAKASHI, MY YOUTHFUL POWER HAVE KEEPED ME IN THE LEAD!"<p>

"What, did you said something Gai?"

"DAMN YOU, MY ETERNAL RIVAL, WITH THE COOL ATTITUDE OF YOURS!"

"Whatever you say, Gai, whatever you say. Forty- five, forty-six..."

"You too are too slow, I have reached the sixties already."

"ANKO-SAN! YOUR FLAMES OF YOUTH BURN BRIGHTLY THIS NIGHT!"

"And, Anko? We have you any jutsu yet..."

"Touché."

* * *

><p>SLASH. PUNCH. BOOM. SLASH. PUNCH. BOOM.<p>

"Hey Kurenai, I was thinking that, after all this fiasco we could go out in date. What do you think?"

SLASH. PUNCH. BOOM. SLASH. PUNCH. BOOM.

"I don't think that this is the best of moments to ask me out."

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

"There goes my last batch of explosive tags."

"I think that you have spent too much time with Anko recently, Kurenai."

SLASH. .

"Yeah, maybe a little too much...Yeah, I'll go out with you...but I'll pick the places."

"Roger! Let's finish this then. **KATON: SHUSUI!**"

"**NINPOU: NOROWARETA NATSU!"**

* * *

><p>Orochimaru and Sarutobi had returned to their deathly dance. What Orochimaru didn't know was that he had been fighting with a special clone all the time while the real Hokage had set a double trap for the rampaging beast and the traitor. Now, the real one was ready, and would take out the monster beast before the human one.<p>

"_**Stop moving you insect!**_**" **yelled the crazed bijuu, while jumping around wanting to flat the land that Sarutobi Hiruzen was stepping on.

Surprisingly, the old Hokage stopped, which threw out of balance the mad raccoon-dog.

"**HIBAN: HAI NO TAIKA"** Beneath the Shukaku a seal array, with the kanji for fire in it's middle, appeared glowing red before a tower of condensed dark blueish fire consumed him with his screams of howling pain.

* * *

><p>Orochimaru was pissed. He had discovered his Sensei's trick behind his annoying substitutions, and yet, he could not do anything about it. It was simple actually, and he was surprised that he hadn't thought about it himself.<p>

If the old man had substitute directly with himself he would had notice the pull and immediately had resisted it, since a substitution with a body with it's own chakra had a natural resistance to these type of things. If the user have huge chakra reserves, bigger than the target's, it was possible but wasteful, even more so since he was doing the substitutions sealessly and silently, which implied a whole level of focus on itself. No. Sarutobi-sensei had come with a far simpler and more effective solution: he had sustitude himself with a Log and then substitute Orochimaru with said Log. It sounded simple, childish even, but it was anything but.

The level of control and precision that it required had to be ridiculously hard. Not only that, but since Orochimaru was substituting with a Log, something without chakra, he could not detected the pull and thus, could not avoid the technique.

Orochimaru could only comfort himself with the fact that his sensei could not use it too often.

"_Ku ku ku, don worry Sensei, soon you will see your precious village burning to the ground."_

His attention got caught by a huge pillar of dark bluish flames that towered into the night sky, casting light to the destruction in the hidden village. It was a second distraction, but it was enough to be used against him.

Too late to react, Orochimaru felt the Hokage extended palm on his , a seal array made itself shown.

"_Chakra Suppressor Seal!" _With a speed worthy of legends, Orochimaru shred his body again, like he did before, and jumped out of the way, putting some meters between him and his former sensei. Gone were his smirk and calmness. In there place was a glare full of hate. _"Danmed! 62% of my chakra had been suppressed. It seems that Sensei is not playing around anymore."_

"You indeed were the best of the three. Such promises of reaching as far as the heavens. You were great, Orochimaru, and you could have been greater. Now, look at you, just a pile of glorified trash." No kindness, no warm. Only cold steel and apathy in the old man voice.

For the first time in many, many years, Orochimaru remembered the taste of fear.

"Shut up, stupid old man! What is with you, lecturing me around after all these time. Fuck it! You can swallow all that crap that you seem so fond to preach. I will not limit myself with useless, inert concepts as morality or rules. I will stand above all, I will change this world, I will save it. ONLY I CAN ACHIEVED WHAT FATE HAD DICTATED." The madness had twisted him long ago.

"You poor child. You had dared to understand things, to touch things beyond your comprehension. Don't worry, I will put you out of your misery."

"SHUT UP! YOU DON'T HAVE AN IDEA OF WHAT IS COMING. YOU IGNORANT FOOL. BAD THINGS ARE APPROACHING AND THE EXISTENCE ITSELF WILL BE DESTROYED! THERE IS NO TOMORROW FOR THIS FORSAKEN WORLD OF SHINOBI. IT NEEDS A SAVIOR, AND I HAVE BEEN CHOSEN. ME!"

"Like I said, don't worry, child... The Tomorrow is something that you will not see." With a sigh, the old man, the special clone of the Sandaime Hokage, charged forward to finish the darkest chapter in the book of his life.

* * *

><p>"Shizune-san, that was the last one to be evacuated."<p>

"Good. You, Hyuuga-san, take another four of the Police Force and take of the rear until the civilians reached the bunkers. You, the other one, inform Hiashi-sama that the evacuation is completed."

"HAI!"

"I will assist Tsunade-shishou. Katsuyu, lead the way."

"Hai!"

* * *

><p>The tower of blueish fire dissipated, leaving it's place a bijuu size statue of a crystallized Shukaku. In the impressive, yet grotesque, work of art, an unconscious Sabaku no Gaara was suspended, like he was floating in a invisible sea of glass.<p>

"_That technique not was only too hot, but also burned the target's chakra. It burned several minutes. Bijuus really are monsters, freak of nature." _The time it burned was tied to the target's chakra pool, the more chakra the more it burned. A kage level ninja like you have burned a minute, two max. The bijuu in front of him lasted almost ten minutes. "Now, it is time to deal with my hazardous former student."

* * *

><p>Orochimaru was dodging and stabbing as much as he could the annoying moving form of his sensei. <em>"He indeed is a monkey, jumping around without stopping." <em>**(AN: **This is a game of words. _Saru_ means monkey while the Sandaime's last name is _Saru_tobi**). **For a second, Orochimaru saw an oppening in the old man's defenses, an small one, one that he intended to capitalized for all that it was forth.

Sarutobi Hiruzen was waiting for him.

While the Snake Sannin buried his poisonous sword between his sensei's ribs, he felt to notice the cut motions on his extended arm and torso until blood started to fly like spilled water. His arm had been cut off and something had hit him on his stomach, sending him flying against a trunk. Dizzied by the impact, he saw how a second Sandaime stepped close to his cut arm and take his dear sword before sealing it in a scroll, before hiding it. The first Sarutobi, the one that he had stabbed, started to combust in from of him in azure flames, leaving nothing but ash carried away by the waist seconds after.

"Since when?" asked Orochimaru, understanding what had happened.

"You never were fighting with me, boy. You should have known better. You should have known that I would defend this village first and foremost... and now, the Shukaku is not a threat to us."

"That... th..at clone jutsu, it was different."

"I'm not surprised that you noticed. You should have known of it, since is a technique that I created myself. Now, it is time to your judgement, boy. I hope that you found whatever piece you can get in the afterlife."

"KukukukukukukukukKUKUKUKUKUK UKUKU." Orochimaru was laughing hysterically now. He found that he couldn't move a muscle (possible under the effects of a restricting seal) and his wounds were quite serious. Yet, he didn't sound like someone that had lost. Maybe his mind had finally snapped? "Poor, sensei... you should have known better." His mocking voice was worrisome to the old man.

At the same moment, Hyuuga Hiashi shunshin-in behind the Hokage, before kneeling in respect ready to give his report.

"Hokage-sama, the evacuation is complete and Konoha Forces are ready to enter Phase Three."

"Understood. Hiashi, then begin..."

"WAIT, SENSEI!" A yell at his right called their attention.

Jiraiya, followed by Tsunade, Minato and Kushina jumped in the scene.

"Kukuku, so it is true: The Yellow Flash and the Red Death have came back to the land of the living."

"Yondaime -sama?! How, when?!" asked Hiashi, but he was ignored.

"What is the matter Jiraiya, and why MInato and Kushina are out in the open."

"Sensei, we have to get out of here, NOW. My intel caught the wind that Suna Forces are on their way here, and they will arrive in 4 hours, 2 hours and 45 minutes at top speed."

"I knew something like that, seeing that the jinchuuriki son of the Kazekage was at the first wave of attacks. We probably can defend the village if planned accordingly."

"That could have been the case if not for Iwa and Kumo forces coming here also. They are at a day and a half of distances. We will not survive."

"Iwa and Kumo?!" asked Sarutobi feeling every bit on his old age one him. Looking back, he saw Orochimaru laying against the trunk coughing blood and grinning like a maniac. "Orochimaru, what have you done?"

"Kukukuku. I may had spilled the fact that somehow the Yellow Flash had returned from the dead but, because his resurrection, he could not use any type of jutsu for a while. Old Oonoki could not prepare his forces enough, the same with A. Their fear for the _Hiarishin_ is still haunting them. Kukukukukukuku. I told you sensei, you precious Konoha will burn to the ground."

"You despicable piece of shit..." said Tsunade angered, walking toward her former teammate with all the intention to end his life. She didn't held any love for the village, but it was the legacy of her ancestors.

"Tsunade/Hime, WAIT!" Yelled Sarutobi and Jiraiya in alarm.

As soon as Tsunade was a couple of steps away the fallen Sannin, the traitor explode if a blazing ball of a dark purple fire that grew ridiculously fast. If it hadn't been for the warning, Tsunade would had used a kawarimi fast enough to save her tail.

The group shunshin await the range of the explosion of time, being Jiraiya, Minato and Kushina carried by Hiashi, Tsunade and Hiruzen out of harm's way.

"Did he really blew himself off?" asked Shizune, who had run into the group while explosion could be hear all around the village, the obvious sounds of going on conflicts.

"No, he definitively planned this from the start. It is possible that this was a modified clone technique with the sole purpose of taking me out. I don't know if I could had escaped _that_... especially after I sealed more than 60% of his chakra and still a explosion this potent was produced. How far had he gone? I wonder..." Said the Sandaime in a tone that, while didn't ring any alarms with the others present, made Jiraiya and Tsunade change brief glances.

It had been a sore spot between then, that the old man seemed to favored their former sneaky teammate over them, and it had been with a bittersweet feeling that they had savoured when he had shown his true skin colour, like silently telling their former sensei, or rather pointing out, his lack of judgement of character in the past. In short, pangs of satisfieying vicdition over dired jealousy. And it didn't helped that the old Hokage still commented with lingering respect and hidden pride after the rogue's treason. But now...

"_It is like he is feeling regret and anger for him" _Was the thought in both Sannins' minds.

* * *

><p>Not too far, in a hidden cave, the real Orochimaru received the influx of memories of his special shadow clone. It seemed that his clone had failed his original purpose, but had provided him with highly valued information.<p>

"_It seems that they don't know of the second wave of Oto's Army: _Ekō_. It is our main force." _"Kabuto! Awake Kimimaro, he will be of used in the end after all, and notify Gurem also, we are going to entertain our hosts in the Leaf until the other guests' arrival."

"Hai, Orochimaru-sama."

"_Check, sensei. Now it's your turn. I wonder... what will you do?"_

* * *

><p>A minute ago, while the group of ninja were running toward Konoha' Kage Tower, Himura Danzo, Koharu and Homura, both Sandaime's advisors and former teammates. The Hokage took the role of painting them their actual picture of the situation so they could understand.<p>

"FOUR HOURS! What can we do in such small amount of time!" Couldn't help but exclaimed SHizune, horrified.

"We actually have 1 hour at most. If I now Orochimaru half as I presume to know, he would have a greater force near Konoha on its way, ready to take of by surprise and unprepared."

"_That damned brat,_ causing more trouble and damage that we originally thought." murmured Koharu to herself, even though everybody heard her and knew of _who_ she was talking about.

"We may not have other option. Hiruzen, we may have to use _that;_ Sensei trusted it to us for a reason." Danzo said, looking directly into the Sandaime's eyes.

"Danzo, are you referring to...?" Koharu, looking quite surprised and pale.

"I think that you know the answer to that, Koharu-chan. I think it is time." Homura, while fixing his glasses.

"Sensei, about what are you talking about?" Asked Tsunade, voicing the present opinions.

"You are right, Homura, Danzo. I think is time to use _it._" With a sigh, the old man close his eyes for a second, muttering something that none of them could heard. "Yuurei, come forward." finally said Hiruzen to the wind.

Not a second later, emerging from the ground, stood the ANBU with a black mask. All of the active shinobi notice at once that, despite being in front of them, they couldn't feel his presence at all, and Hiashi couldn't see his chakra either... like the body of the ANBU was empty...

"Yuurei, bring Inoichi ASAP, and them bring Shiranui Genma, Nimiashi Raido y Nanashi after him." ordered Sarutobi.

Silently, Yuurei disappeared, like if vanished in thin air, before reappearing again with a surprised Inoichi. At the surprised faces of the group, the Hokage decided to explain. "Yuurei can do the shunshin flawlessly with almost no chakra to burn. His range is the ALL village."

Again, Yuurei disappeared before returning with Genma, Raido and Nanashi, all of whom stared in disbelief to the revived Yondaime.

That was incredible, and even DAnzo was caught by surprise for a second, not that he showed it. The shunshin required a lot of precision and chakra control to work, and the normal range among the jounin rank was between 5 metres to 15 metres max. Konoha had a radius at least 100 times more than that.

"Inoichi, I need to communicate with the whole village, can you connect me with our people?"

"Hokage-sama, theoretically I could, but I don't know if I have enough chakra left to achieve it."

"DOn't worry, Yuurei will provide you the chakra. How much time do you need."

"Five minutes, if I hurry."

"Do it, and Yuurei will provide you with information that you will dispatch to our forces immediately."

"Hai!"

"Sensei, do you mind telling us what is going on?" asked Jiraiya while he watched Inoichi kneel next to Yuurei while he was doing a long series of handseals.

"You will know soon enough... Danzo, how many Root Agents do you have in the village?"

"42."

"It will have to do. Danzo... are you up to be the Gondaime?"

Dead silence.

"You already know the answer to that Hiruzen. My time had long passed to take the job." _"Though, somehow I'm happy to hear those words from you... old friend."_

"I thought so." Said Hiruzen with a small smile, ignoring the looks of shock and confusion of the presents, even from Koharu and Homura. But somehow, they understood what was in stake. "Koharu, Homura... I think is time to pass the torch to the next generation, but before that, are you up to take a last mission?"

Both old geezers nod, while taking their clothes, revealing battle gi similar to the one that the Hokage had.

"Okay, this is the plan. Tsunade, you and the others, bar Hiashi, will take that direction and pick up the unconscious Sabaku no Gaara and take him with you. Don't worry, I place a seal on him and Yuurei have more justin case, then go to the bunkers immediately, Inoichi will tell you what are you going to do next. Meanwhile, we are going..."

* * *

><p>"Inoichi, are you ready?"<p>

"Hai, Hokage-sama."

In the top of the Kage Tower, the only one reminding were the Sandaime, his advisors, Danzo, Hiashi, Yuurei and Inoichi. And behind them, 42 Root Agents in formation. All of them still like old oaks in the wind.

"Then, let's begin."

"_People of Konoha, I, your Sandaime Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, carry to you grave news, because today the other Nations had decided that we are too much of a treat to be left alone. Today, our birthplace should see its last dawn. But, despite this, don't despair, don't falter, don't yield in front the oblivion of this dark hour. Because no matter our enemies plot our early demise, that the whole world become our poison, that the paws of hell itself come to rip our souls, The Will of Fire cannot, and will not be extinguished."_

"_Now my brethren, hold close to you these beliefs, and we never will be defeated. From now on, I will not be more you leader and protector, but from now on, your new guide and teacher, advisor and leader, your new Gondaime Hokage will be Senju Tsunade..."_

* * *

><p>"WHAT! I WILL KILL THAT OLD FOSSIL!"<p>

"Calm down, Tsunade-shishou... I mean, Gondaime-sama."

"SHIZUNE, DON'T EVEN JOKE ABOUT THAT!"

"I am not joking, Hokage-sama."

* * *

><p>"<em>... and with her, a new era for our nation. Let me give a departing gift, a new start for you, my dear brethren."<em>

Immediately, Yuurei did four one-handed seals, since his left hand as on Inoichi's shoulder. A second later, all the ninjas, and some civilians, received information directly on their heads.

* * *

><p>"This is incredible..."<p>

"Amazing."

"I can believe something like this was hidden from us this long."

And so on where the comments of the people of Konoha, marveled at the knowledge that now the possesed...

* * *

><p>"<em>Sayonara, my brethren. It is my hope that Kami walks alongside you in thy journey."<em>

* * *

><p>As soon as the Sandaime finished his last speech, Yuurei cut the connection and dragged Yamanaka Inoichi via <em>shunshin <em>where the rest of the population stood.

* * *

><p>15 minutes later, Genma, Raido and Nanashi performed a grand scale <em>Hiarishin<em> with the help of 4 special clones, courtesy of Yuurei, to stabilized the jutsu and supply the chakra that was needed.

Barring the shinobi on the top of the Hokage Tower, all Konoha populace disappeared in a yellow flash.

* * *

><p>32 minutes later, the first wave of attacks from the Oto Forces hitted the village.<p>

They were repelled until Orochimaru himself engage the lead of Sarutobi Hiruzen.

* * *

><p>2 hours later, Suna main forces arrived enclosing the Konoha Defenders in a Pincer Attack.<p>

The Yondaime Kazekage ended crippled, losing his left arm, while killing _Hijin _Homura crushing him in a golden tomb.

Koharu went down killing Kaguya Kimimaro and Gurem in the process. Danzo managed to kill the Sound Four.

* * *

><p>Three days later, only Sarutobi Hiruzen and Himura Danzo were at the front of the battle alongside the 12 Root Agents that reminded.<p>

Lasting until the _hour of the sheep_, the remaining defenders were crushed with the arrival of the Yondaime Raikage, A, and Nii Yugito and 100 shinobi army. Iwa reinforcement arrived 2 hours later.

* * *

><p>The <em>Shinobi no Kami<em>, Sarutobi Hiruzen, _Shinobi no Yami_, Himura Danzo, _Honō no kattā _Koharu and _Hijin_ Homura, with 42 other shinobi, took down 382 enemy units from Suna, Oto, Iwa and Kumo before falling to the last man.

Their tale was passed from one generation to another in the pages of history, gaining the respect even from their enemies.

* * *

><p>Four months later, the reminding 8 jinchuurikiis disappeared without a trace. Blaming each other, the remaining Four Great Nations, declared war among themselves.<p>

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AND CUT!... Just kidding XD... Here it is also part 2, that conveys what had happened in Wave, between Tsunami and Kisame.

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**Last chapter:**

_In Kisame's mind, this woman was not a pushover. Any sane person would have tremble or feel at least some apprehension. Kisame just grinned in excitement. Zetsu, being the rational-bipolar person-plant that he was, decided to move to a safe, far away, distance to see the upcoming match between masters of the sword._

_Because there wasn't any doubt in all the presents' minds, that anything less than a clash of blades was unacceptable._

* * *

><p><strong>Now:<strong>

**Nami no Kuni**

And as one, both swordmasters move, meeting each other with their blades midway. They seemed to be fixed in that position, suspended in time, while in truth, they had clashed at least another 53 times in a row. It was, more that the eye, even especial eyes, could see. Zetsu could only sense each parry, block and slash that the black haired woman and Kisame were trading as easy as giving candy.

Kisame felt something that he thought forgotten: the inexplicable joy of crossing blades with another master. Now he understood why such magnificent weapon had chosen this woman as its user. Or wasn't the blade the one using the woman? And it was so fast that neither he could use ninjutsu of any kind non Samehada could absorb the chakra of his opponent. A battle of pure skill.

Tsunami, on her part, wasn't thinking about anything. In true, she felt like she was dancing with a pro, lead by his expert hands through the floor, turning and spin at the slightest of movements. Her companion was _Benizakura_, and it was telling her body how to move and when. She didn't need to think, she didn't want to. All she knew was that blood would be spilled. She was self aware of herself and her environment, she even could feel even the falling leaves from the nearby trees. The melody of her heart was quiet, with a normal paused rhythm, like she was meditating.

It was time.

"_Oogi: Ametsuki"_ All of a sudden, Tsunomi's blade turned into a blur, reappearing a second later. THOUSANDS of cuts appeared on sharkman scales, his black with red clouds cloak ripped in tiny little pieces.

And it didn't faced the Monster of the Bloody Mist, who took the opportunity of her slight paused and launch his own attack.

"_Ninkenpou:_ _Shitataru_" With a strong thrust, Samehada's round point collided with the blocking edge Benizakura... not that it did any good.

Tsunami was pushed back by an unseen force a couple of metres away, stopping with effort against a trunk. Kisame smirked. On the woman's torso a circular wound could be see, like somebody had stamped on her a a big metal ring... harshly. What he had used was a secret technique that he developed during his days in the Mist, and was based in one of the basic katas of the Mist Sword Katas. What he basically did was to vibrated Samehada's edge and made a shockwave that travelled through the humidity of the air, amplified by his chakra. Concentrating the power on the wave, the damage could be severe. With the forced that he had used gain the woman, Kisame had go through a 14 inches width wall of steel quite easily.

But the woman wasn't even bleeding.

"I see, you nullified most of the power behind that technique with the dull end of Benizakura. I'm impressed. Tell me, woman, what's your name?"

"It is impolite to ask someone's name without giving your's first. But with that sword of yours, it may not be necessary... Monster of the Bloody Mist."

"True. But let's keep tradition. My name is Hoshigaki Kisame, former member of Seven Swordsmen of the Mist."

"My name is Tsunami, protector and ruler of Wave Country."

"Tsunami, eh? I find it fitting. I will remember that name. Now, lets test if you are up to your own name."

And with a blur, their deadly dance started anew. Neither of them stopping to catch a breath, or to notice the passage of time, because the slightest of distraction could be fatal. Tsunami had the better weapon, that much was clear, and with it's help, she was kept alive. Kisame had the most chakra and tools at his disposal, his also was using a sword style created by himself, something that was a bonus against Benizakura, since the sword could 'remember' it's previous foes.

And then, an opening made itself known.

"**Oogi: Kubikiri Kyuukoiru.**" Tsunami thrust forward, making nine slashes at supersonic speed.

"**Ninkenpou: Umi no Kiba**" Kisame, with Samehada in a reversed grip, made a horizontal slash that launched a whitish blue energie in the form of a crescent moon, but seconds later the blue wave multiplied itself with it's centre as its axis, making look like a 3D crescend asterisk.

Tsunami knew that she would not be able to move fast enough, and if she tried, she would leave herself open to another attack, so she steeled herself and put her katana in front of her, ready to block, but the asterisk suddenly divided itself, at mere inches of Benizakura's edge, into many crescent blades that rushed against Tsunami from above, the sides and her back. Reacting on instinct, thanks to her katana, she made cutting motions all around her at high speed, which made her look like she had many arms with many blades all around her.

Kisame on his part wasn't idle. Tsunami's attach caught him almost by surprised, and only his reflexes and speed reaction born after many encounters with S-class enemies, saved him of being minced in tiny little pieces. Still, his left shoulder as gone, and its place was a huge missing chunk of meat in perfect circle with a swirling pattern on the wound. A similar chunk of missing meat was in the right side of his ribs, thankfully not too deep, and both his legs. Samehada was working overtime to supply him with chakra so his body could heal faster than a human and more like a true monster.

"_The technique that the bitch used scared me for a second... and it wasn't at it's full power. Then again, I'm not using the full extend of mine either." _Thought the sharkman, grinning in excitement.

Tsunami, on her part, was bleeding profusely and, while she looked like she was normal, both of them knew that she needed medical attention ASAP. The metallic smell of blood that reached Kisame's nostrils was calling him, like it was appealing to the animal in him, the beast that wanted to pound and shred to pieces the enticing pray on his sight. And he was about to, when suddenly his plant-man companion, emerged from the floor next to him.

"**Kisame, Leader-sama wants** us to return. It seems that Konoha is under siege. **And he saids that you need to return...IMMEDIATELY."**

"Look at that, when one wants to have fun, more work shows out of nowhere, and when one is enjoying working, it is cut short also."

"I agree with you, but orders are orders. **So stop complaining and move, we don't have the whole day.** You are starting to sound like Sasori, you know? **Shut up.**"

"Well, woman, I seems that we have to postpone this to a latter day. Tell me, are you interest in join _Akatsuki_? If you do, the protection of your home will be a lot easier. And believe when I tell you that I am not the strongest in our organization."

Tsunami only glared at him.

"I thought so." And with that, the pair started to walk away starting to fade in the sea fog that covered the area. Kisame's disembodied voice could be heard from everywhere. "Keep yourself alive, until we cross our blades again."

And with that, the criminal due disappeared completely.

After being sure that they weren't nearby, Tsunami dragged herself across the bridge, collapsing at the other side, where some villagers, attracted by the sound of metal-against-metal, found her, and carried her to the local doctor's house.

Their new leader had fulfilled her promise of protecting them of harm. Now was their turn to take care of her.

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AND CUT, AND THIS TIME IS FOR REAL.

Sorry for the extended delay. I had 80% of this chapter finished like a month and a half ago, but college sucked all my time with midterms and other educational crap. Yeah, life in college is awesome, and dreadful at the same time. Part of living, I guess.

SO, what do you think about the chapter? Eh? Some of you may point out that Konoha's destruction was kind of rushed and way too easy, but I need to confess that I wasn't planning to prolong it. Remember, this are ninja battles, which by definition need to be fast and short. Or could be Cold WAr Style with sabotage and espionage left and right...

And who saw that coming: DAnzo rejecting the Hokage's HAt? It may be too OC, but I based my take in the last moments that Danzo had before killing himself in kannon, remembering his time in the Third's team. ANd yea, Gaara was capture, and Kushina, Minato, and somehow Jiraiya, will come back and as badass as ever, but it will take them a lot of time and effort.

Opinions of Kisame's vs Tsunami's fight?

Okey, this is officially the last chapter of this part of the Epiphany series. At some point during next week I will post an epilogue of sorts, that will deal with the aftermath of Konoha's fall, alongside what is happening in the word with the declarations of war, and what had happened with Chouji. Also, I will post a preview of the final part of the EPIPHANY TRILOGY.

Now, translations:

**Fukoi Byakugan: Kuraun**: [Deep perceptive all seeing eyes: Crown] Is the ultimate mind control genjutsu of the Fukoi Byakugan, and was the one used on the Hyuuga Clan by Hinata in the early chapters.

**Kuresshendo**: Crescendo.

**KATON: SHUSUI**: [Fire Art: Summer Breeze] It is more a fuuton jutsu with fire enhancement. It is literally extremely hot air that also can slice the targets. An A-rank ninjutsu.

**NINPOU: NOROWARETA NATSU** [Ninja Art: Cursed Summer] A genjutsu that made the body of the target believe that it is in high fever, causing dizziness, lost of balance, sight and hearing.

**HIBAN: HAI NO TAIKA** [Fire Seal: Conflagration of Ashes] An S-rank fuunjutsu that launched a pillar of blue fire that uses the target's chakra as fuel. The more chakra, the hotter is the flame and the longer it will last. First Invented by Uzumki Senju Mito and later modified by Sarutobi Sasuke, the Third's father.

**Ekō**: Echoes.

**Hijin/Hi no Seirei**: _The Fire Genie. _Nickname of Homura gained during the last war.

**Honō no kattā**: _Fire Slicer. _Nickname of Koharu, gained during the last war.

**Oogi: Ametsuki**: [Secret Technique: Lunar Rain] A kenjutsu technique that use a constant-movement motion type with the blade to make dozens of cuts in the targets body. It is said that is a modified version of a technique that the Ultimate Ninja, Hattori HAnzo, used against an Uzumaki patriarch at the beginning of the Clan Wars Era, almost three hundred years in the past.

**Ninkenpou: Shitataru**: [Ninja Sword Style: Drop] The explanation of the technique is in the chapter. the Ninkenpous was the Mist final product of incorporating the Ninjutsu and the Kendo together.

**Oogi: Kubikiri Kyuukoiru**: [Secret technique: Beheading of the nine spirals] One of the high level

techniques of the former Uzumaki Clan sword style, Uzugabatana [Swirling Edge]. No much is know about the technique, except that it is incomplete, and that it intended to cut in nine pieces the target.

**Ninkenpou: Umi no Kiba**: [Ninja Sword Style: Fangs of the Sea] Explanation in the chapter.


	9. On wings of lighting

**Chapter 8: On wings of lighting. Life goes on, Naruto.**

* * *

><p>"<em>Nature is always moving. Absolute rest is Death"<em> – Pascal-

* * *

><p>So, this is the end. I could feel how my life force was slowly banishing, alongside my chakra. My breath was paused and soft, so much that I wasn´t able to hear it, as I couldn´t feel my limps any longer. I estimated that I could last another day or so before losing consciousness, and I knew that, after I closing my eyes I would never open them again.<p>

Shinobis weren´t meant to live this long. I have had to witness all the three great wars, and had participated in two of them. I have lost almost all my family, having to bury my children and grandchildren one after another. A parent shouldn´t bury his progeny, it was against nature! But at least I had always my teammates with me, giving me support, watching my back. Hiruzen-kun, Homura-kun, Danzo. You three were the best friends that anyone could have asked for. Thank you, it is because of you that I have came this far.

Now, I only need to wait patiently to fulfill my last mission; I just hope that I succeed.

(Flashback)

"_Koharu-sama, I need to ask you for a favor." Asked me the Yamanaka's Clan Head, visibly anxious. They have just terminated the transmission via mind jutsu of the fate of Konoha, and they ready to go away._

"_What can I do for you, gaki?"_

"_I need you to deliver this to a certain place." He gave me a little black cubic box with a seal mark in white ink on its top, and then, he gave me a brief explanation, telling me that Chouza's kid, Chouji I think his name was, was underneath the Akimichi's Compound, totally sealed in, working in a special training. It was likely that the special seals in the underground area had warded the kid off from the mental transmission, and thus, when he get out, he would need an explanation. My job was to give him the little black box. I accepted, but I told him that it was most likely that I would have been dead before he got out. _

"_I know, Koharu-sama, I know." Was his only answer, while a small, sad smile was on his face. _

(End of flashback)

And thus, I fought and I survived, somehow. To tell the truth, I passed out due to blood lost and somehow ended under a pile of corpses. My luck saved me, because, due to my totally depleted chakra, those beasts that invaded us never detected me.

I recovered consciousness days later. Thanks to a specialized training that I had developed with my sensei, Senju Tobirama-sama, by body had kept me alive minimizing my breath and lowing by body temperature. When it had recovered enough chakra, it started to convert it, slowly, into a life supporting system that allowed me to stay for weeks without eating and drinking anything. Sadly, as tired as I was, I only could last 6 days max. This was my fifth day.

Before I lost my limps mobility, I had eaten a couple of Blood Pills that skyrocketed my blood pressure and the amount of blood in my body, to the point that almost all my veins exploded, but I converted it quickly into chakra to sustain a little longer my life. It took an insane amount of chakra control to do it, a control that could only be developed after decades of practicing and fine tuning, as well as the needed medical knowledge to pull it off. I think that only Tsunade could replicate the feat at the moment, though is a possibility that her young apprentice, Katou Dan's niece, Shizune, could too.

And now, resting against a surviving piece of wall that was left standing, where I estimated had been the Akimichi Clan, I could only wait that the Shinigami come to take my soul to the afterlife.

THUMP!

My eyes snapped shut when I heard the sharp knocking sound at my right. Turning my head slowly, I saw a trapdoor lifted from the floor and the silhouette of somebody emerging form it. I tried to call his name, because I knew that this has to be Chouza's son, by I found that my throat was too dry. I did the next best thing: I whistled him.

I got his attention, because in the blink of an eye, and I'm guessing that the kid knew the _shushin no jutsu_ somehow, he was next to me.

"What happened here?" He asked. His voice was full of disbelief and hidden anger, his face was pale, and his lips were trembling.

"Too *cough* long *cough* to explain. Inoich… *cough* left you something. In my *cough* left pocket. He said that you would know what to do with *cough* it." Great! Now I was performing a perfect interpretation of Hayate Gecko and his Eternal Cough.

He did as I said anyways, though worry was dancing in his eyes. Know that I looked at him I noticed that he was shirtless and I was surprised of what I saw.

"_What kind of training this kid went through?" _I wondered. I had only see him a couple of times, but it wasn´t difficult to remember the chubby little kid next to his fat father, eating from his usual bag of chips during one of the regular inter-clan meetings.

What I could see know was a young man with a pack of muscle. Gone was his fatness, replaced by an incredible set of well defined muscle. Even the weirdo of Maito Gai would have been impressed. His face was sharper and more defined and his brown hair was now falling free down his back in a spiky mane (**AN**: like in Shippuden). His forehead protector was wrapped around his neck, while a long, yet skinned scroll was tied at his back on his waist, like a sword (**AN**: like Sasuke used his sword in Shippuden).

I saw in his eyes that he recognized whatever the black box was. And then I noticed that my eyes felt so heavy all of a sudden. It seemed that, now that my mission was completed, my body didn't need to keep going.

"Wait! Please endure it a bit longer. Let me look for some water." Said the shirtless kid with tears falling freely from his eyes, before going back to the underground bunker.

Why is he crying? This is part of our shinobi everyday lives. He should know that there is not returning from me, or maybe, does he knows it and is crying because he is powerless to stop it? Or maybe is it something else altogether? What a kind heart… kind, naïve and foolish. This world is harsh and unforgiving. This village burned to the grown should have sunk that message in him already.

As he was retreating, I saw a huge tattoo on his back, a tattoo that I recognized from before my genin days.

"_Is that a dragonfly?" _I smiled while my eyes closed; consciousness slipping from my graps._ "And I tough that I would never see_**it**_ again. It seems that we will watch Dragonflies in our horizon again." _Somehow I was happy; a little ray of hope could be seen at the end of this dark tunnel. _"Ne, Hiruzen-kun, did you felt proud of me being in your team? Hiruzen-kun, Homura-kun, Danzo, Tobirama-sensei… Let's watch the new generation from the afterlife, while they protect the _Will of Fire._"_

And then, I could feel myself a lot lighter than I had ever felt.

* * *

><p>I had finished two thirds of my training when I could go out of the bunker to finish the last part. My body felt different, stronger, more resilient, and faster. The food was as good as the training, but missed severely my mom's cooking. All I could think was the delights that were waiting for me when I opened the trapdoor that connected with the surface… only to discover a barren land of scorched earth.<p>

I could not believe what my eyes were showing me. A knot in my stomach started to form, ad a phantom pain started to grow in my heart. Before the panic could trap me, I regulated my breathing, bring calmness and peace in the blink of an eye, while repeating one of the meditative mantras that Akimichi Chouzen had created for that purpose.

Now calmed and relaxed, my sharpened senses were trying to find something alive in this land of desolation. A soft whistle was being played at my back. I turned and saw a silhouette of somebody resting on the reminding section of a wall. I run to her, or more accurately, I _moved_ one or two steps before being next to her, reducing our distances of a couple of meters of distance down to zero in a blink of an eye… literally.

She was all, and her wounds were lethal. I knew with just a glance that she wasn't going to live. Still, I prayed that I was wrong. I recognized her as one of the Sandaime's advisors that had visited the Clan a couple of times. I didn't remember her name.

She didn't tell anything of importance, except something from Inoichi-ojisan. I recognized the black box immediately.

Noticing her dried throat, I went back to grab some water, so I could speak a bit more of whatever was happening. When I came back, the old kunoichi had passed away. Her face looked clam and at peace, and I noticed that her mouth had formed a small smile.

"_I wonder, what did you find in the end, obaa-sama."_

Using an explosive tag that I found in her pouch, and taking everything that was left, I burned her body before starting my journey.

The black box had a silver pill in it. It was a Memory Pudding, and it was an experimental invention that my father and Inoichi-ojisan had been working in, with the occasional help of Shikaku-ojisan. What it did was to storage a specific memory in the pill so that, whoever eats it, could get the memory. It was intended to rely instructions in undercover missions without arising too much alarm or to pass a great amount of information at once. Or that was the theory behind it, and as far as I knew it was yet to be completed.

I swallowed it, and immediately knew that it was prototype. A pang of dizziness and nauseas hit, alongside a new set of memories. After I had calmed down, I gave myself the time to be amazed at what had happened. The details weren't clear, but I had a general idea of my circumstances at the moment.

I started to walk to the East, where my family was waiting for me.

"_**Mumei Kuni**__, eh? This will be a long journey." _Great, know I started to sound like Shikamaru, troublesome. _"Sakura-chan, I wonder where are you and what are you doing. Are you watching the same sky as me?... I promise, my cherry blossom, that I will found you, and definitively, I will ask you out…"_

* * *

><p>He was toying with me, I just knew it. Still, I was avoiding the edge of his ninjato, kunais and the occasional shuriken with easy. His teaching methods were brutal, put to lightly, and yet, I could feel myself how strong I have become. I was dancing a deathly tune of blood and steel, and I couldn't be happier.<p>

And then, a second Itachi-sensei was at my back, throwing a Great Fireball like only an Uchiha could, ready to vaporize me. I continued to dodge his insistent sharp ninjato and kunais until I feel the heat almost scorching me. Taking him by surprise, I spun using my left leg as an axis and extended my palm against de fireball touching the flames.

To his astonishment, that only was shown raising his right eyebrow less than a millimeter, the fire ball dissipated into nothingness, leaving neither smoke nor heat waves. I didn't stopped there, instead, I used a_shunshin no jutsu,_ one of the jutsus that I still could do, to appear at his back and then, another one to appear at his front, disorientating him, ad trusting my palm in his gut… just to disappear in a smoke curtain.

"_A shadow clone!" _ I mentally snarled, while looking back the original Itachi-sensei who was trying to stab me since the beginning of the spar, but he wasn't anywhere to be found. I stopped immediately, something pointy and cold at the base of my neck at my back.

"You did well, Sakura-chan, but this is your limit." Said the ever stoic man from my back.

"Is that so?" I said while feeling myself smirk at his naivety.

Shifting my gravity centre, I twisted my own body while spiraling horizontally, kicking circularly the man, putting some distance between us, while I regain momentum with my hands in the ground, coming back to kick the Uchiha in his rigs… and he too dissipated in a curtain of smoke. Another shadow clone.

* * *

><p>A dry clapping from my left.<p>

"Excellent, Sakura-chan! You had come this far in such a short time is… humbling." My always stoic sensei said, with his usual lack of warm or emotion of any kind.

"You don't sound humble at all… and I still couldn't hit you."

"That may be, but now you can hold your ground against two of my shadow clones, something that not many can claim." His voice wasn´t a one of self praising, but one that was stating a fact. And he was. "Anyway, start packing; we will be in our way in two hours."

"Where are we going?" I asked, not really waiting for an answer from. He will tell me only what I needed to know when I needed it.

He started to walk away, but he answered anyways, leaving me out of balance by the surprise. "To _Idaina Seinaru Goyama."_

Still surprised, I chased after him, wondering what business we had in the territory of the monks. Not that it mattered. Konoha was wiped out of the map, and I knew that war was in our footstep.

I feel excitement building in my stomach. The season was the right one for adventure. Poor Haruno Sakura, trapped in her own mind, unable to enjoy this small little pleasures that life had to offer.

"_Don't worry, Sakura-chan, I will enjoy it for both of us."_

* * *

><p>"You are lucky, Tsunami-sama. Your body is healing faster than normal, but your muscles are strained by an abnormal amount of pressure." Told me the old doctor in our village, while I put my kimono back on. It looked like knew, despite that my fight with Hoshigaki Kisame had let it in rags. I wonder how the kimono was part of Benizakura as well.<p>

"Please, Genzo-sensei, you had looked after me ever since my birth, you don't need to be so formal; if anything, I'm the one that should be showing respect to you." I reply, somehow guessing what he was about to say. I wasn't disappointed.

"That may be, but know you are the one that has our fate in your shoulders. THAT deserves respect."

My reply was cut short with the arrival of Tamaki, one of my dad's former building crew. Now he was in charge of the crew, and was the responsible of finishing the bridge that cost the blood of our best men, of my dad.

"Tsunami-sama, a group of seven people had arrived to the village, claiming to be ambassadors of _Mizu no Kuni_ and _Kirigakure no Sato_." He said with rush, obviously nervous.

My eyes narrowed, wondering about their purpose. But if I have to guess, it was about a treaty between our countries. It seems that the news of Konoha's fall wasn't an exaggerated rumor after all.

"_Naruto-dono. I know that you are still alive. You are, and will be, always welcome here, please, remember that." _

Finishing to clothing myself, I nodded to Tamaki in appreciation, and started to walk to the village center, where Tamaki told that they were, to meet them.

Our village wasn't too big, though now, with Gatou gone, we could start to expand our village a little bit more. It took me 5 minutes of walking to reach the center. Bad memories came to me while I arrived to the place where my dear Kaiza was executed, where our people, where _I_, lost any kind of hope. Casting my emotions away, I faced onwards, looking a small crowd surrounding something or someone.

Noticing me, the crowd let me through, so I could pass and see what all this was about.

One of them was petit, with long dark blue hair and a standard FROST mask, the ANBU unit of Kiri Hunters. It looked creepy and I could see that it's slanted eyes were unnerving the villagers. Next to her was a tall well endowed mag. He had the Kiri headband wrapped sideways on his head, and the lower part of his face, from the mouth downwards, covered in a facemask fashion with bandages. He didn't had eyebrows, which surprised me a little, not that it didn't daunted his handsome looks… and he was wearing a shirtless- sleeves (being the shirt the missing part); completing his dangerous look a huge _zambatou_ was stuck on his back.

I ignored the rest of the _guests_ focusing on the man with the sword, a man that I recognized as a former colleague of Hoshigaki Kisame.

"Kombawa, Momochi Zabusa. Welcome to Nami no Kuni." I said, making him smirk behind his masks. Unconsciously, my hand was on the hilt of my sword.

Last time I checked, the Demon of the Bloody Mist was nuke-nin.

* * *

><p>We have been walking in comfortable silence ever since we departed from the inn. Hinata- chan was far away, even if I could not see her empty eye sockets behind her bandages, I just knew that she was 'looking' so far away into the infinity. Her beautiful lavender pearls were stolen from her, and just thinking about it piss me off so much that my anger was nothing compare to my hatred against that godforsaken village. Their rumored destruction did nothing to daunt my anger.<p>

"Naruto-kun?" asked soft voice next to me. Hinata-chan's melodic words got me out of my funk, though I could detect hidden worry in her voice. "Are you alright? Is it something bothering you?"

"Why do you ask my Hime?" I answered with another question in my smoothest voice.

"Your chakra… is flaring."

My chakra? Great, now I'm way too emotional to be safe to be around of. Controlling breathing, I controlled my emotions until they calmed down. Ever since I absorbed the Fourth's and his wife's chakra, my emotions had been running rampage if unchecked. I suspected that the new sets of memories had also a copy of their emotions and now they were conflicting with my own.

"It is nothing to worry about, Hinata-chan. It seems that me, absorbing the Namikaze's and Uzumaki's memories had unbalanced my own…. but don't worry," I rectified quickly, "they will be totally absorbed in a couple of days, a week tops." Now, a diversion tactic. "But you, how are you feeling?"

"I'm find… just unusually tired, that's all."

"Do you want to rest a little bit?"

"How far are we from the monastery?"

"I will say that, at this pace, we will be there in 20 minutes or so."

"Then let's go on; no point in wasting more time that we have."

And so we continued marching forward to a place that I only knew of by second handed experiences… quite literally. As we got closer, we could appreciate the change in the atmosphere. We have been hiking up the tallest mountain known to man: Mountain _Shuutmatsu._ It was in an island at the south of Tea Country and, curiously, quite close of _Uzu no Kuni_. While the landscape was breathtaking, it was the sky, with is orange and purple colors, dying the horizon with a sea of contrasting rainbows.

Soon enough, we arrived into a small town. It was obvious to us, looking the clothing of the natives, that the local folks were part of the monastery that could be seen behind the town itself connecting them a huge set of stairs. The people were walking form one point to another, carrying baskets of fruit and herbs, or talking with other villagers. Children could be seen running and playing with each other without care in the world. The men had their heads totally shaved while the nuns had their hair long and braided in a long ponytail.

In the entrance somebody was waiting. A bald man, or a man with a shaved head, was standing in front of them. He had the tunics that were the signature of the monks. He looked like he was 22 years old and had his eyes closed. In his right hand was a Bo staff of the same height was the estranger.

"Greetings Uzumaki Naruto; I have been waiting for you." Said the monk with a gentle smiled in his face.

The same words, that the same man had told him in Nami no Kuni, in the same exact way. Naruto narrowed his eyes, not quite comprehending the implications of it.

"It is _Kishin no Naruto_ now."

* * *

><p>We were almost there. My clothes were dirty and had some blood stains on it. They were not mine, but that hardly made me feel better. Ebisu, that close pervert that <em>jiji <em>had assigned me, and my friends by default, had used himself as a meat shield so Udon, Moegi and I could escape to the bunkers. We weren't fast enough and where witnesses of how a man with many scars on his face had blow him apart with a strange technique. We were paralyzed by fear while the pervert's blood rained upon us, like Death's red embrace. I swore that we were done for, that we would die, and I acted.

Is not that I cared for that damned pervert, who annoyed me to no end. It was not like he was important to me. Then, why tears were falling from my eyes while I stood in front of the bastard that killed him with a kunai in my hand? He raised his hand t o strike me, but when I blink I was in the arms of a purpled haired ANBU with a Cat mask. I also so that Moegi and Udon were in the same position with other ANBU. They dropped us safely in the bunkers.

And then, after hearing _jiji'_s voice in our head and after knowledge poured in our brains out of nowhere, our world was engulfed in a bright yellow flash. When I came to my senses, I noticed that we were in a rocky tunnel with light coming from a entrance of sort 5 to 6 meters away- Our knew knowledge told us to walk toward the light, and we did so. At this point my tears weren't falling and I could feel my eyes dried. Anything else felt numb, like my tact was gone and my body was moving on pure instinct and innate motions. Absentmindedly, I noticed uncle Asuma walking next to me. His eyes were dead to the world except that they were looking something in his arms, or better to say, someone. As far as I could tell she was female with black hair and she was wearing a bloodstained dress that looked more like medical wrappings. And the woman was missing her two legs, cut down from her knee. The thumbs were bandage but were crimson red with blood.

I paid it no mind and continued walking… toward the light at the end of the tunnel.

* * *

><p>I was alone, again. Both my teammates had disappeared and my sensei was fighting a war that came out of nowhere. I was the last Uchiha, the person fated to kill Uchiha Itachi, the traitor of what once had been the greatest among the clans. I tried to fight the invaders and defend Konoha, but a damn ANBU stopped before I could do anything, and now, I somehow ended at the frontline of the group that was walking to the light at the end of a tunnel that simply guide us to… somewhere.<p>

My trained eyes got accustomed to the new lamination. In front of me, in what looked like a intermountain valley, was a huge tree… or more accurately, a Giant Tree. And my perception was kidding me, my Sharingan ensured that. We were in the entrance of a plateau, and I estimated that we were like at least 25 kilometers form the centre of the valley that was, unnaturally round. The sky was blue with the random cloud while the mountains that surrounded the valley were covered in snow. The temperature was cool, and it was rubbing nicely on my skin.

I could see movement down into the valley that had to be the sides of Konoha, and thus I knew that we were in the place that our new set of knowledge had told us.

"_So, this is it. It is more impressive than it sounds." _For a moment, my previous funk was forgotten to let my amazement show in my face, like everybody else, before scolding my emotions back to anonymity.

I had given a couple of steps forward when a swirl of fire appeared out of nowhere. _"A __**Hi Shushin!**__" _I thought, surprised. I recognized as the _shunshin _variant that my clan invented.

The swirling fire died out quickly enough, letting us see the caster of said jutsu. Distractively, I noted that many of the shinobi in the crowd had fallen into a fighting stance. And then, my eyes, Sharingan activated, showed me something that shouldn't have been possible: A pair of Sharingan eyes, three tomoes of dark intensity and power.

"Kombawa, citizens of Konoha. ,y name is Uchiha Mikoto and I welcome you to_** Konokigakure no Sato**_."

"KAA-SAN?!" I couldn't hold it anymore.

"Indeed, Sasuke. You and Itachi are not the only Uchihas alive." She said. And she wasn't happy to see me.

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THE END.

And this is the final chapter of the Second volume of the **Epiphany Series**. Yes, Sasuke's mother is alive and yes, I cut Kurenai's legs off. This chapter was strange for me, with the whole first person description, as I tried to capture their perception of the changes in their world. I didn't if I succeed or not, but I wanted to try it. And I hope that you liked it.

So, what do you think?

The title comes from the second verse of a song called _"Improve the Shining Moments" _by Robert B. Baird, and it reads:

_Time flies on wings of lighting; _

_We cannot call it back. _

_It comes, then passes forward_

_along its onward track._

_And if we are not mindful,_

_the chance will fade away, _

_for life is quick in passing._

'_Tis as a single day._

The whole song is beautiful, and I recommend you to look for it when you can. I found it fitting.

I think that the parts that I liked to write the most where Koharu's and Chouji. I didn't go over all their emotions, because in a sense all of them were in a state of shock, and Chouji hasn't seen the brunt of it yet, but don't worry, the reminding part of his innocence will be gone really soon.

* * *

><p>Now, translations:<p>

**Mumei Kuni:** Unnamed/ Nameless Country.

**Idaina Seinaru Goyama:** The Great Sacred Five Peaks.

**Mountain **_**Shuutmatsu:**_The End of the World Mountain.

**Konokigakure no Sato:** Hidden Village Among the Trees.

* * *

><p>And now, the news! I will not publish the third and last part of these series, for while. Instead, I will concentrate my efforts in Broken Circle and other story for some time. Now, this is my question: which other story do you want me to continue?<p>

Forsaken: Forgotten

The Wind Walker

[A new story that I´m working on?]

Please, state in a review which one do you want and why. And you can only choose one. If for any reason you mention more than one, I will pick the first one that you mention. I will wait for your responses.

* * *

><p>And now, a preview of the final part:<p>

"**Now I understand everything, and now I know what must be done."**

"**You will not escape, Madara; this is your end."**

"**Itachi-kun, take care of our child."**

"**You don't seem to understand, daughter of mine… you will not return to the real world."**

"**Now I know what true Repentance is; as such has been _revealed_ unto me."**

"**You will carry my mission and burden as the new Rikudo Sennin."**

"**Stop this madness!"**

"**Everything will come to an end."**

"**Because I'm merciful as a Deva, and I impart judgment as an Akuma."**

**EPIPHANY, vol 3: DEVA. **


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